Future's Sacrifice
by ProofThatThisIsReal
Summary: 129 years after RotJ, nine years after the Ravager Wars against the Jedi, past secrets are revealed and a Sith rises to power ready to take on the Universal Alliance, the Jedi Order, and Coruscant itself if need be.
1. Chapter I

**Title:** Future's Sacrifice  
**Author:** ProofThatThisIsReal  
**Genre:** Adventure, Action, some humor, some other stuff  
**Timeframe:** 129 years after Return of the Jedi, 9 years after the cataclysmic Ravager Wars took place… (All will be explained concerning this)  
**Main Characters:** Everyone is an Original Character except for Threepio and Artoo… But they're good Original Characters, if that counts for something…  
**Summary:** 129 years after Return of the Jedi, nine years after the cataclysmic Ravager Wars against the Jedi; a group of Jedi Masters for the Universal Alliance are returning from their search for a disturbance that they have sensed in the force. (Oh, that's original, isn't it?) A wandering Jedi Master with his padwan, their pilot, and, of course, Artoo and Threepio, go out to meet the group of Jedi. But past secrets are revealed, and an enemy rises to power who is ready to take on the entire Universal Alliance, the Jedi Order, and Coruscant itself if need be.

**Disclaimer:** By the way, in case anyone didn't notice, my user name is ProofThatThisIsReal, not George Lucas, and guess what that means? Ironically enough, it means that I do **not** own the Star Wars universe, though this story is completely my imagination.

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**Future's Sacrifice – **Chapter I

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"Oh, my!" C-3PO cried out in his usual prissy voice, his metallic droid hands clamped firmly around a pipe lining the ship's interior decking. "We're doomed!"

Darrik Fate twisted his head around in his seat and shot the droid a bemused grin. "Come on, Threepio," he said mock-seriously, his eyebrows slanting as he tried to imitate an innocent expression. "Have I ever let you down before?"

"But, sir! You don't understand!" Threepio cried out in desperation. The droid's photoreceptors seemed to widen as he stared out the transparisteel of the ship's bridge at the approaching asteroid. "The odds of successfully navigating through an asteroid field this tightly clustered together at these speeds while simultaneously outmaneuvering the majority of a very adept pirate gang that have been greatly angered by your recent destruction of their main base of operations are approximately eight-"

The screech of the ship's proximity alarm, alerting to an approaching asteroid, cut him off, and Darrik quickly shot his gaze back to the panel of instruments settled beneath him. His hands played across them with practiced ease as he carefully diverted his attention between the ship's sensors and the oncoming asteroid.

"Brenden?" he called out without turning his head from the viewscreen, "get ready to fire at these coordinates on the asteroid that I'm about to send you, okay?"

A few seconds went by, and then another voice echoed from the back of the ship, "Okay, got it!"

"Okay, let's see if we can get this right, Threepio," Darrik muttered to the droid, his eyes still locked between the sensors and viewscreen.

"Oh my."

The ship, Daybreaker, a small starcruiser resembling something like an oversized A-wing from the outside, shot straight toward the rocky surface of the asteroid. Its twin ion engines glowing a bright blue, the Daybreaker expertly began its decent so that it lined up perfectly with the asteroid's center. Then, right before the Daybreaker seemed to be engulfed by the asteroid's mass, the starcruiser rapidly pulled up into a half spin and swung around behind another closer asteroid. A pirate vessel then came into view from behind them, and a vicious stream of laser fire arched from the vessel into the first asteroid where the Daybreaker had just been.

"Okay, Brenden; now!" Darrik shouted, still keeping his eyes fixed on the instruments.

Another arch of laser fire was Brenden's reply as it impacted against the deep gash in the asteroid's side where the pirate vessel had shot. A cloud of dust erupted from the spot, and a crack began splitting the asteroid in half as Brenden's continued fire impacted against it. Another large crack spiked off sporadically from the point of impact on the asteroid, followed by other tiny fractures that laced themselves around the entire mass. Then, in what seemed like only a heartbeat, the asteroid was completely torn apart by the excessive cracking that had laced its surface. Chunks of the asteroid scattered out into the empty space with a blanket of dust following.

The pirate vessel that had been trailing the Daybreaker paused briefly at the unexpected sight, and then raced around the side of the dispersing dust mass, trying desperately to avoid the large chunks of rock floating away from the remains of the asteroid. However, one of these chunks, hidden in the dust from both sensors and visuals, careened awkwardly toward the small pirate vessel and struck the cockpit blatantly. A small explosion marked the pirate's grave as the chunk of rock smashed the vessel even further against another asteroid, creating another cloud of dust to add to the bigger one.

"Nice shooting, Brenden," Darrik called into the back of the ship, risking a glance away from the controls. "That dust cloud should give us a blanket cover on their scanners for a few seconds."

"Thanks," Brenden replied with a mix of terror and adrenaline coloring his voice, "but I do have some bad new. The pirates have about eight or nine other ships behind us still, four of which are corvettes, with a few frigates and some other stuff I can't identify yet."

"I feel so honored," Darrik responded with a roll of his eyes.

"Well, we did blow up their base, didn't we? Anyway, I seriously doubt we have enough firepower to take them on. If you have any Jedi tricks left that you'd like to show off; now's the time."

"Yeah, one second," Darrik said, his face turning sober. He turned his head to stare out the transparisteel of the Daybreaker, and his eyes glazed over as if he was looking at something far away.

He sat like that for a few seconds before Threepio interrupted him and asked nervously, "Sir, are you sure that you're-"

"Okay, got it!" Darrik suddenly responded, jumping back to reality. "Brenden, how long do we have until the pirates are in range to attack?"

"Um, we should have about fifteen or twenty more seconds before their sensors can penetrate that dust cloud back there. After that, though, they'll be on us in seconds."

"Okay," Darrik replied thoughtfully as he tilted the ship toward the edge of the asteroid belt. "Here, you see those two huge asteroids on the edge of this belt?"

"Yeah."

"Well, at the rate that they're drifting, they should both collide with each other in about two minutes. Now, there is a third asteroid orbiting around one of the bigger ones. It should be coming around and colliding with the other two at about the same time so a three-way collision will be going on. Our goal is to try and get between the two bigger ones before they collide. Then, if the pirates are close enough behind us, they should be pinned between that third asteroid and the impending collision of the other two asteroids. They won't have enough time to get out of the way before the asteroids collide. If we're lucky, that should solve our little pirate problem."

A moment scathed by without sound, and then Brenden asked, "But won't they be able to see that third asteroid orbiting around the larger ones on their sensors? I know they're pirates and everything, but I would think that they'd be smart enough to know that running blindly into an asteroid collision course is a bad idea."

"Normally, yes; but the mass from the bigger asteroid is great enough to hide the smaller one orbiting around it. If you look, it doesn't even appear on our sensors."

A second of silence followed, and then Brenden's voice came back with, "Wait, so then how did you know-…" Brenden caught himself mid-sentence, and then said, "Right, one of those force things."

"Exactly."

Darrik suddenly felt a tingling in the back of his mind, and he jerked the yoke of the Daybreaker upward in a violent motion. This was directly followed by a warning alarm that announced a turbolaser blast flying by beneath their stern.

"Talk about an alarm being completely useless," Darrik muttered under his breath. "Okay, Brenden; have they cleared the dust cloud yet?"

"Yeah…" Brenden's voice responded sullenly. "Oh, this doesn't look good. More turbolaser fire coming up, Darrik!"

"Got it," Darrik said as another turbolaser blast struck a nearby asteroid and sent it careening into oblivion. "Okay, I've got the rear shields to maximum. Have they started firing missiles yet?"

"Just started to; want me to take them out?"

"Yeah, and be prepared for some jerky maneuvering."

Darrik heard Brenden let loose with the laser cannon that was mounted on the starboard side of the Daybreaker and saw a few of the blips on his radar that marked missiles disappear. At that moment, however, the fleet of pirate vessels seemed to have finally come into a formation where they could unload everything they had against the smaller Daybreaker. A barrage of laser cannon fire, missiles, and turbolaser blasts followed as the pirate vessels began to close in on their prey.

"They really don't like us, do they, Threepio?" Darrik said in a deceptively calm voice as he sent the Daybreaker into spins and climbs around asteroids that would have made hardened smugglers cringe. Threepio babbled something about the odds being below zero for their survival and impending doom upon all of them, but Darrik was too preoccupied with not being vaporized to note exactly what it was the droid was saying.

Skillfully, Darrik swerved through a particularly tricky cluster of asteroids, dodging left and right through the small openings between them. He then came back out on the other side of them, leaving the cluster of asteroids between the Daybreaker and the fleet of pirate vessels.

His sensor alarms suddenly erupt into a frenzied static. He glanced down at the sensors at the same time that Brenden called out, "Darrik, the corvettes are concentrating their turbola-"

His voice was cut short by the sudden rattling of the ship as four turbolaser blasts shredded the asteroids behind them. One of the turbolaser blasts had made it through the asteroid cluster without detonating, and Darrik was thrown forward in his seat as the blast impacted against the Daybreaker's rear shields; rocketing the starcruiser sideways into an uncontrolled spin.

Darrik heard Threepio scream the word "dooooom" out from somewhere as he fought back desperately for control of the ship. Then, without any kind of warning, a chunk of one of those asteroids that the turbolasers had shattered suddenly collided with the starboard side of the Daybreaker.

The Daybreaker abruptly stopped spiraling, and Darrik's head was jerked sideways in his seat. His pilot's harness had been the only thing that had kept him from flying across the bridge. He dazedly raised his head saw Threepio's golden, metallic head lodged between two pipes in the back of the bridge and wondered dimly in the back of his mind how in the world the droid had managed that one.

"Uhh…," Darrik groaned, turning his attention away from Threepio. He turned around in his seat and shouted into the back of ship, "Brenden, you okay?"

"Um, yeah; kinda," Brenden's answer came back, his voice sounding hoarse and ragged. "But the turret isn't. That asteroid completely knocked out all targeting sensors for this thing, and in a few seconds I think the cracked transparisteel for it is going to give. I'm sealing the compartment off now."

"Okay, good. When you're done come on up here; I could use your help," Darrik turned back around to the controls of the Daybreaker. Slowly, he tested it's responsiveness by tilting it first left, and then right. After checking the maneuverability of the starcruiser, he fired up the engines again and sped off toward the three asteroids near the edge of the belt that were on a collision course for each other.

"What level are the shields?" Brenden asked weakly as he stepped up onto the bridge of the Daybreaker. He had a slight limp as he sat down in the copilot's seat, and he was rubbing his neck where he had apparently been jostled harshly during the collision.

"Um, they're at thirty-seven percent," Darrik responded with a shrug. "Not too bad for colliding directly with an asteroid, but still… Anyway, are you sure you're alright?"

"Yeah, 'm fine, I was just kind of knocked around a bit," Brenden grinned slightly. "Anyway, how are the engines?"

"Yeah, that's the bad thing." Darrik answered with a grimace as he turned back to the controls. "The port side's working just fine right now, but the starboard side where that asteroid struck is working at only about fifteen percent power. We'll still be able to maneuver with it, but that's about all."

The Daybreaker jostled slightly as an arch of laser fire hit the rear deflector shields and discharged against them in a haze of green static on the ship's monitor.

"And I thought they had forgotten about us," Brenden said sarcastically.

Darrik dropped the Daybreaker a few meters as a few stray shots roared past them and the rest of the pirate fleet moved into firing position behind them.

"Okay, those two big asteroids on the edge of the belt are right in front of us," Darrik pointed out through the transparisteel, sweat beginning to bead down his cheek. "Only… we're not going fast enough right now to be able to make it before they collide."

"You can't get any more speed out of her?" Brenden asked, anxiety beginning to color his tone.

"Nope," Darrik shook his head. "Well, the only way to go any faster is to divert all available energy to those ion engines, and that would mean suicide for us because we would have to drop the rear deflector shields." He brushed his hands across his face and cupped them in front of his mouth for a second, his gaze fixing on some random point on the bridge. Suddenly, his eyes lit up and he exclaimed, "Wait a second… Brenden, get the computer to calculate a microjump between the two asteroids right before they collide."

Brenden nodded tersely and turned back around in his seat. His fingers began racing across the control panels as he locked in a course for a microjump.

"Um, sir!" Threepio announced worriedly as he made his way to the two pilots, apparently having finally gotten himself free of the pipes that he had been lodged between earlier. "Sir, to try any kind of jump to hyperspace within the boundaries of an asteroid belt would be practically impossible. The gravity interference from the asteroids alone would rip the hull to pieces the moment we started the jump, not to mention the complication of the pirates that are closing in behind us."

Brenden's voice cut back in before Darrik could respond. "The course is set, Darrik, but Threepio's right. Unless we can go into some kind of barrel roll right before we jump, the asteroids' own gravity will throw us straight into the biggest one if we try to jump between them."

"Hmm," Darrik's mouth twitched slightly, "I'm guessing we want to avoid that, right?"

"Well, I personally don't feel like being vaporized today. But whatever; it's your call."

A grin spread across Darrik's face and he asked, "Okay, Threepio; where's Artoo?"

"Um, I think he's still trying to keep the rear deflector shield's power boosted as high as possible, but if you need me to-"

"Okay, tell him to try and boost the power of the port ion engine,"

"Um, yes sir, but… If I may say so; wouldn't you want him to repair the starboard ion engine, since it's the one most heavily damaged?"

"Trust me, Threepio; just tell him to max out the port side ion engine as much as possible."

"Um, yes, sir," Threepio announced obediently, and began walking off into the back of the ship where the astromech droid R2-D2 was stationed.

"Hard to imagine Luke Skywalker and Han Solo with these droids, isn't it?" Brenden chuckled.

"Yeah, and from what I've heard, they've always been like this," Darrik grinned.

His grin turned into a sort of troubled smile as the ship was jostled again by another laser cannon hit to their rapidly diminishing rear deflector shields.

"So, what exactly are you going to try and do with the asteroids?" Brenden asked.

"I'm going to send the ship into a sideways spin right before we jump, like you said, using our one good engine to go into the spin. That way, the gravity from the two asteroids won't be able to take hold of the ship too much as it goes into the microjump, though we will probably come out spinning… Of course, that is if I can get the angle and speed of the spin correct before we jump."

"If?" Brenden replied doubtfully. "And if you don't, what happens?"

Darrik grinned a nervous smile, then asked, "So, how many more seconds until we jump?"

Brenden rolled his eyes and shook his head slightly, then looked to the control panel. "Um, … about fifteen and counting."

"Sir?!" Threepio blurted out as he reentered the room, apparently having relayed his command to Artoo already. "Sir, are you still attempting to try and-"

The ship lurched forward slightly as another barrage of laser cannons slammed into their starboard side. The Daybreaker wavered slightly as if it was about to plummet into a spin, but Darrik expertly leveled it out and continued on toward the rapidly approaching asteroids.

"We jump in ten," Brenden's voice echoed throughout the cabin, his hands griped tightly to his seat.

"But, sir!" Threepio's call was the panic of a droid that thought it was about to be incinerated. "Sir, the odds of successfully calculating both the correct angle to turn at and the precise speed at which you must be traveling to safely jump to hyperspace between two larger bodies of mass that have their own gravitational fields around them are approximately-"

"Never tell me the odds," Darrik quoted the famous Corellian smuggler Han Solo, a smile playing across his face at the irony of telling this to Threepio.

"Five seconds," Brenden voiced.

"Oh, my!"

"Four seconds,"

"Let's hope this works," Darrik muttered, his hands tight on the controls, his knuckles white.

"Three seconds,"

"Oh dear, I can't look!" shrilled Threepio, his metallic hands held up to his face in terror.

"Two seconds,"

"Okay, hold on!" Darrik announced as he began to swerve the Daybreaker to his left, taking off all power to the shields as he did so in order to transfer as much power as he could to the port engine. _Com'n, Artoo! Give the port engine as much power as you can…_

"One Second," Brenden murmured in a very nervous voice as the ship began spinning sideways.

In that brief instant, Darrik pushed forward a key on the controls in a short, quick stab. The stars became streaks for a split second before melding back into bright white dots as the Daybreaker hurtled out into the open space outside of the asteroid belt, spinning wildly.

All three of the occupants on the bridge crashed forward. Darrik's face collided with his elbow as he tried to cushion his blow against the control panels. Brenden came out better, as he had turned sideways right before the microjump and therefore was only slammed against the side of his chair as the Daybreaker came out of hyperspace. Threepio, on the other hand, went flying across the room because of his lack to hold on to anything and was, again, lodged into the pipes that lined the interior decking.

"Oh my!" cried Threepio from the tangle of pipes.

"And to think that you ever doubted me, Threepio," Darrik said nonchalantly as he raised his head from the control board, a grin spreading across his face yet again. He clumsily wiped away the blood from the cut on his head where he had hit the controls, and turned to Brenden who was stretching his arms out where they had bruised against the chair.

"So," Darrik began as he grasped the Daybreaker's controls and slowly stopped the ship's radical spinning, halting it before the distant asteroid field that they had just microjumped from. "What exactly happened to our pirate friends?"

"Um," Brenden frowned as he checked the ship's sensors, "it appears that they…"

A bright red and blue explosion erupted in front of their viewscreen, and the two men both jerked their heads up in unison to look at the distant asteroid field in front of them. The three asteroids had finally collided, and judging by the streaks of red and blue, they had also found their targets, which were now nothing more than fireworks in the distant expanse of space.

"They blew up," Brenden finished the sentence, his face indifferent.


	2. Chapter II

**Future's Sacrifice – **Chapter II

"I think that that bit of flying deserves an award," an older, purposeful voice echoed out onto the deck from the back of the ship.

Darrik and Brenden both turned in their seats instantly in order to see the newcomer. As the man walked casually up the steps onto the Daybreaker's bridge, they could see that he looked to be in his mid-fifties, his face was slightly lined with age, and he had the slightest of a brown beard wrapped across his face, complimenting the color of his bright, green eyes. Across his shoulders laid a dark blue robe that concealed most of his light tan shirt beneath it. His hair, a dark brown with only the slightest hints of grey, was draped down to his neck. Attached to his belt, where his tan shirt was tucked down into his black pants, was a silver-handled lightsaber.

"Oh, sorry Master Sundair, did we wake you?" Darrik asked politely, trying desperately to look innocent and failing all the same.

Kendal Sundair, Jedi Master for the Universal Republic, stood looking down skeptically at his padwan, Darrik Fate. Darrik was a twenty-one year old that stood tall and lean and had dark auburn hair that drooped just above his eyebrows before slightly curling out away from his head. He wore a maroon shirt and black pants and had one of his grins on that showed he had a sense of humor, but also, if you looked deeper, an amount of seriousness to himself. His deep, dark blue eyes sometimes contrasted shockingly from his usual behavior, and this gave him a kind of omnipotent look at times.

Kendal then flicked his eyes to the figure beside Darrik, Brenden Durrath. Brenden was a military pilot/technician for the Universal Republic, with slightly dirty blonde hair and bright blue eyes that complimented his curious disposition. His height was only slightly lower than Darrik's, making him about the average height of most humans. He was twenty-four years old, and he got along great with Darrik, due partly to his overwhelming curiousness and partly to his slight ignorance.

"I think," Kendal finally responded as he flicked his eyes back to Darrik, "that with alarms blaring in my ears, asteroid's hitting our engines, and an entire pirate gang following behind us right up until the point where we performed a microjump between two larger asteroids, that I could hardly try to meditate very well."

Kendal ended his lecture with the hint of a smile, and Darrik returned it as Threepio announced, "Um, if I may interrupt, sirs; would you be so kind as to help me remove my head from between these two pipes. I seem to have lodged it in at an awkward angle this time."

The three men broke out into laughter at this, and Brenden went over to Threepio to help dislodge him from his entanglement, muttering, "this time… right."

"Seriously, though," Kendal spoke up as the laughing died down, seating himself in a chair next to Darrik, "that was good flying through the asteroid belt. And you used the force to sense that third asteroid orbiting around the larger one. I'm impressed."

"You were awake during that?" Darrik asked, surprised.

"I awoke right before that first asteroid hit you," Kendal replied with a sly smile that looked strange on his lined face.

"But what if we had miscalculated that last jump or something like that? You could have stepped in to help anytime, I'm sure. But you didn't."

"I was putting my trust in you, Darrik, and it turns out that I was right to do so."

Darrik squinted his eyes for a second at this answer, and then nodded his head with a look of mild understanding. His eyes, however, seemed to say otherwise.

"So," Brenden exclaimed as he came back up from behind the two men with a broad smile spreading from cheek to cheek, "this is the fourth pirate base we've taken out in three weeks. That's doing pretty good by the Universal Alliance's standards." His eyes fell across the two men thoughtfully as he said, "You know, if more Jedi did these kinds of things, then the galaxy would be a lot less intimidating. How come you guys are so different from the rest of the Jedi I've met or worked with? And don't try to change the subject this time, because I know you two have been avoiding that question for a while, now."

Darrik smiled at the young cadet's honesty. Brenden had joined them on the Daybreaker three weeks ago due to him being thrown out of active military service for the time being. Brenden had apparently 'displeased' his commanding officer a few months earlier by refusing to take part in some raid against 'supposed terrorists' who turned out to be civilians. Brenden's actions proved to save the civilian's lives in the end, but the law had required that the cadet be punished in some way for violating a direct order. His commanding officer, instead of throwing him out of the Universal Alliance Military completely, chose to let him do some good to the military in the service to the Jedi Order on Coruscant. It was on a stop at Coruscant that he and his master had met the willing cadet, who asked if he could tag along with them for a while since they didn't seem as 'boring' as the other Jedi that he had met.

At first, Darrik hadn't exactly been pleased with having someone else tag along with him and his master to wherever they went across the galaxy. He had had bad experiences with military personnel in the past, and he did not want Brenden to turn out to be one of those kinds of people. But, three weeks and four pirate bases later, Brenden Durrath had proved to be an excellent pilot and technician to them, as well as an invaluable companion.

Darrik turned to his Master as the old Jedi let out an uncharacteristically long sigh and dropped his head. Kendal then slowly lifted his head back up and fixed Brenden with a firm gaze.

"To answer your question," Kendal replied, his tone going even more uncharacteristically darker, "many of the younger Jedi that you met on Coruscant are probably tied into the political part of the galaxy too much, in my opinion. They are still Jedi and try to uphold the law as they see fit, but they are being unknowingly used as puppets to the citizens, whose greed they will never be able to protect them from. Many of the conflicts that the Jedi go in to trying to fix are caused by their own actions or inactions to restore order to a people that they have no stake in. Unfortunately for them, these Jedi are forced to rely on the Jedi's disciplines so much that they forget how to listen to what their consciousness tells them to do. You can only ask someone to follow something that they don't fully understand for so long before they rebel against it out of confusion, or just plainly stop caring. It's a sad cycle, and one that the Jedi counsel has been trying to restore in one way or another for as long as I know. And, to their credit, they have had some success with certain Jedi. But the majority, I believe, are still tied down into believing in things that they don't yet fully comprehend, and probably never will, though they don't even realize it."

He paused briefly, and took in a deep breath. His eyes seemed to glaze over just the slightest as if in thought.

"I, however," he continued, "think that to show yourself what it truly means to be a Jedi, you have to let your own consciousness and your own choices guide you around obstacles and down your own individual path without a Master breathing down your neck, telling you what to do because it's supposedly 'right'. The great Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn is a good example of what I think a Jedi should be, and he is one of the Jedi from the Old Republic that I have the most respect for. He was strong, wise, and even rebellious against the Jedi Council, but by doing so he proved his individuality for what he believed to be right, and this made him a stronger person as a whole. He had a strong connection with the living force, and it is said that even after his death at the hands of Darth Maul on Naboo, he was able to transmit the essence of his soul into the force. He then used this technique to contact other Jedi such as Anakin Skywalker and Obi-Wan Kenobi, and it is said that he even contacted the great Jedi Master Yoda and taught him this soul-preserving technique.

"This sense of individuality that Qui-Gon Jinn possessed is one of the reasons why I, personally, think that attachment can be considered a good thing for certain Jedi, if it does not blind you to reality. Attachment is usually discouraged within the Jedi Order's ranks, since this can cause younger Jedi to become too attached to something, and this attachment could eventually lead them to the dark side of the force. But, I think that if you can understand yourself correctly, attachment can be part of what defines you as a person and thus a good thing, else it would probably not exist at all to the Jedi. He paused again and looked up at Brenden. "That probably makes absolutely no sense to you, does it?" he asked with a broad smile.

"No, no, it does," Brenden replied truthfully. "That actually tells me a lot more about the Jedi than what I had known so far." He rested his chin on his hand for a second and twitched his mouth slightly. "So, if so many other Jedi don't really understand themselves and what they are doing, then how exactly were you raised to think like this?"

"I was taken by the Jedi Order at the age of twelve to be trained to become a Jedi. I regret to say that it wasn't until much later in my life as a Jedi Knight that I finally discovered who I was and how I could use the force to help people as much as I can now." Kendal's face dropped slightly as he paused for breath.

"If you think about it, though," he continued, his voice darkening once again, "most of the Jedi that have sought out the Jedi Order because of their own want to use their powers in the force for good were the strongest and the wisest in the end. Many of the ones that other Masters had taken upon themselves to train are the ones that I would say are the most… corrupt, if I can use that term. I believe that they were often the ones that did not understand themselves well enough to properly embrace the force…"

Kendal's voice sounded as if he was talking to someone else as he continued. "In fact, some of the most prominent Sith Lords to ever plague our history had been former Jedi, raised to become Jedi by Masters who did not give them the proper experience to understand the force. Darth Vader, for example, was formerly the Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker, the Chosen One, who was turned to the dark side in a doomed hope to save his love from dying. Ironically, his embracement of the dark side is ultimately what led to his love's death, and thus Darth Vader was turned into a puppet of the Sith Lord Darth Sidious during the Empire's reign. After nearly twenty years, Vader was finally turned back into the Jedi he once was when he saved his son, Luke Skywalker, from Darth Sidious by throwing the Emperor down a power shaft. Darth Vader, or, more likely, Anakin Skywalker, died shortly thereafter from wounds that the Emperor had inflicted upon him."

Silence enveloped the canopy as both Darrik and Brenden starred at Kendal's sullen face. His hands were outstretched and supporting his head as he leaned on the chair's armrests, his mouth stretched outward slightly and his gaze drifting. Darrik was surprised he was telling Brenden this much, as he rarely heard his master talk about the Sith Lords of times past, much less to someone else.

"Sometime later," Kendal continued, his eyes slightly misted over, "the Sith Lord Darth Caedus, who was formerly the Jedi Knight Jacen Solo, the child of both Han and Leia Solo, delved into the dark side of the force in a doomed attempt to try and save the galaxy from itself. He was destroyed by his twin sister not long after, however, and died trying to warn his love of an impending attack on her life."

Kendal's eyes were concentrated on a nearby wall, his eyes misted over. "An even longer time after that, the Sith Lords Darth Aumbian and Darth Reszrinn rose to power during the Ravager Wars. Darth Aumbian, a former Jedi Master who had claimed to have finally found the truth behind the meaning of the force after secretly discovering a Sith holocron on the teachings of Darth Zannah, turned to the Sith's creed for his own personal knowledge which he hoped to use to mold the galaxy into a 'perfect' place. He then acquired a fleet of loyal supporters and, using his unique powers of telekinesis, he decisively began attacking planet after planet of the Universal Alliance, which he blamed for corrupting all Jedi with its one-sided teachings.

"It had been just a few weeks into these attacks when a very young Jedi padwan from the Jedi Order, whose actual name had somehow been erased from anyone's mind who ever knew it, came into play. He had been described as a prodigy in the force, though Masters of the time had grown concerned that he might be acquiring power too quickly, much like the young Jedi Knight Anakin Skywalker. The young padwan was barely the age of fourteen when he strode into the Jedi Temple on Coruscant and, for reasons still unclear today, beheaded his former Master, before all the other Jedi of the temple. He then killed three other Jedi Masters and four Jedi Knights in the temple, using his prodigy-like force powers and dueling skills, before escaping into the streets of Coruscant. It is unknown why exactly he did this, but theorists speculate that he had been corrupted by some sort of dark-side influence before this sudden, violent display of power.

"Two months later, he had followed in Darth Aumbian's footsteps and had taken a place beside the Sith Lord as Darth Reszrinn, Dark Lord of the Sith. Despite Reszrinn's young age, Darth Aumbian appeared to have accepted him, not as his sith apprentice, but as another Sith Lord altogether. The two Sith Lord's ruthless desire for revenge, power, and knowledge then resulted in the seven-year-long Ravager Wars. With Aumbian's small fleet of supporting vessels, the two Sith Lords maliciously played two sides of the galaxy against each other, due to conflicting views against the Jedi Order. One side of the galaxy became the Ravagers––the side that opposed the Jedi and all their teachings, and the other side of the galaxy remained the Universal Alliance––the side that supported the Jedi.

"When the Ravagers were at their height, Reszrinn and Aumbian emplaced themselves as the Ravager's leaders through a combination of cunning and deception. With this new Ravager fleet before them, the two Sith Lords struck out against the Universal Alliance in treacherous space and planet battles. Despite the Universal Alliance's superior numbers and technology, the Sith Lord's Ravager fleets slowly began reaching out toward the capital planet, Coruscant.

Kendal paused briefly, then continued. "Aumbian and Reszrinn were obsessed with finding the holocrons of the Ancient Sith Lords throughout the Ravager War, and they were reported to have visited places such as Ziost and Korriban, the sith homeworlds, multiple times during their search. They apparently found these Ancient Sith holocrons around the third or fourth year of the war, for their power in the force began to suddenly grow exponentially. During battles with the Universal Alliance's fleets, they were reported to have used their unnatural powers in the force to determine the outcome of a battle. In a few instances, the two Sith Lords were reported to have used the force to hurl massive Star Destroyers into one another, effectively destroying an entire armada with a single wave of their hand. On ground forces, they were said to have made the earth cave in around their victims, decimating entire worlds themselves sometimes when necessary. Many dark Jedi began to defect to the Sith Lord's side after these tremendous displays of power, and the Ravager fleet's numbers started to climb.

"Numerous attempts had been made to destroy the two Sith Lords, by both the military and Jedi alike, but Reszrinn and Aumbian seemed to be invincible. Hundreds of Jedi that pitted themselves against the two Sith Lords over the seven-year period were slaughtered, either by the Sith Lords' superior commanding of the force, or by their expert lightsaber dueling techniques. It was said that less than one third of the original Jedi Order remained alive after six years into the war, and that most of them had been slain personally by the Dark Lords themselves.

"As Reszrinn and Aumbian pressed their now-larger Ravager fleet into the heart of the Universal Alliance, it began to look possible for the Sith Lord's to actually succeed in taking the capital planet of Coruscant. This was during the last year of the war, and it was in this situation that the Jedi Council came up with a desperate, final attempt to vanquish the two sith.

"During one of the routine visits that the two Sith Lords made to the planet Korriban throughout the war, the Universal Alliance and all the remaining Jedi Masters and Knights expertly separated Aumbian and Reszrinn in a strategic move by the Jedi Order. Darth Aumbian had been cornered on-planet, inside one of the Sith Temples, while Darth Reszrinn had been trapped in a small ship in the asteroid field surrounding Korriban by a fleet of Universal Alliance Star Destroyers. Both of the Sith Lords were kept from using the apex of their force powers while they were trapped due to the multitude of Jedi present, and this prevented them from being able to escape using the force.

"On Korriban, the Sith Lord Darth Aumbian made his final stand against the hundred or so remaining Jedi that had chased after him. He was able to take down six of the Jedi Masters in an epic lightsaber duel within the Sith Temple in which he had barricaded himself before his former padwan, his own son, was able to strike him down…" Kendal blinked his eyes briefly, and then raised his head again. "Darth Reszrinn must have sensed his impending doom once his accomplice had perished, for just a few moments after Aumbian's death, Reszrinn made a final mad dash with his own smaller ship against the superior Universal Alliance Star Destroyers for a chance to either fight or escape. His mad dash proved futile, however, when his ship was shot down by the Star Destroyers and it then started disintegrating against Korriban's atmosphere as the small vessel plummeted into the sith homeworld…"

Kendal paused for another second, and then said quietly, "All this happened nine years ago, as I'm sure you are both aware of. And all of these instances I've just told you are only a few in which Jedi have been led to the dark side of the force, either through their greed or by their lack of knowledge of themselves."

Darrik starred at his master quizzically as he finished. Although he had heard these same stories from him before, this time he had sensed a flare of emotions within Kendal when he had mentioned Darth Aumbian being stuck down by his own padwan, his own son. Then, without even thinking about what he was saying, he whispered, "that was you… You were the one who defeated Aumbian…Aumbian was your farther…"

Kendal slowly turned to study him with one eyebrow raised and a wan smile on his face as he replied softly, "I wondered if you would ever be able to figure that out… I think it was after that fight with my father, a former Jedi Master who had turned to the Sith, that I finally realized who I was and how I could make a difference with the force."

Brenden's face turned from perplexed to shocked and then back again as he stammered out, "w-wait a second. So, it was… it was you who defeated Darth Aumbian at the end of the Ravager Wars?! And you're his son?!"

Kendal chuckled slightly. "Yes, though it is not common knowledge, and I expect it to be kept that way." He glanced at Darrik again, as if in thought, and then turned back to Brenden. "Anyway," he continued, "it was after that battle that I think I discovered myself, and through that, the force, on an entirely new level. Some of the remaining Jedi Order, however, thought that I had been corrupted in some way during that battle with my father and had turned to the dark side of the force myself because I had since questioned some of the Jedi's practices. Others on the Jedi counsel understood exactly what I had been through, though, and they argued on my behalf. I did not want to cause a rift in the Jedi order immediately after a war had just ended and when there was still much work to be done to stabilize the Universal Alliance, so I happily resigned my post and took off to find my own path."

"Wait, so…" Brenden began again, his curiosity getting the better of him. "So, you're not technically a Jedi Master right now?"

Kendal chuckled again as he said, "don't worry; I may not be an official member of the Jedi Order anymore, but they recognize me as such for my services to the Universal Alliance and for my defeat of my father, which probably saved the Jedi Order from being destroyed. To be honest, I probably have more respect then most of the Jedi Counsel does right now for my deeds during the Ravager Wars."

"Wow," Brenden said, seemingly stunned, his brain absorbing the knowledge like a sponge. "So, after you left the Jedi Counsel, what did you do?"

"I went to seek myself out further, helping out the Universal Alliance where I could, and, mainly, becoming more in tune with the force. I battled some of the remaining Dark Jedi that still lingered after the war, along with small pockets of Ravagers that still opposed the Jedi, and I traveled from planet to planet, doing what I could." Kendal looked back at Darrik as he said this next part. "Over time, I feared that I would not be able to pass on my teachings to anyone because they could not be capable of understanding themselves enough to fully comprehend what it was that I was trying to teach them, or if they did then they would misuse those techniques and use them for the sith. But then, two years ago, near the outer rim on some governmental planet during my travels, I ran into a kid by the name of Darrik Fate."

Brenden shifted his attention to Darrik as Kendal continued. "I found him two years ago, and I could immediately tell that he was different from most anyone else I had yet encountered. He had a sort of inner peace within him that few, if any, individuals are capable of having."

"My parents had abandoned me," Darrik broke in, his own eyes glazing over just the slightest. "I wasn't even sure of what my last name was, but I was somehow able to find myself in the hands of a very good family of friends who taught me a lot of what I know today. They were the ones who gave me the last name of 'Fate', since I had helped save their lives a couple of times with my developing force powers against the suppressive military government there. I was still unsure of exactly what this force experience was, however, and I had only heard rumors about it in connection with the Jedi. Then Kendal here decided to show up one day and, due partly to my fascination with the force and partly to my want to leave the suppressive government that dominated most of the citizen's lives there, I decided to come with him." He smiled briefly, "and thus, I'm here now; two years later and-,"

"And with a pretty formidable commanding of the force for someone with only two years of proper training," Kendal cut him. "Anyway," he continued, "history lesson's over; time to return to the here and now. Brenden, can you retrieve Artoo from the port engine outlet for me. I think he's still trying to repair the damage that those pirates caused."

"Okay," Brenden answered dimly, still apparently tumbling over this abundance of information in his mind as he stumbled off into the back of the Daybreaker to retrieve Artoo.

Darrik fixed his master with a quizzical stare once Brenden had left and asked quietly, "how come you've never told me about your father before? You had alluded to being one of the Jedi that had helped defeat Aumbian a couple of times, but you never told me that you were his son."

"I believed that you should find out on your own, and in due time, and not because I wanted to keep you in the dark," Kendal replied in the same tone, a mix of regret and support texturing his emotions. "Anyway, are all systems in good enough order right now to attempt hyperspace?"

"Um," Darrik started at the change of subject as he spun back around in his chair to face the Daybreaker's controls. "Most of the systems are still trying to self-repair from that collision with the asteroid, and the shields are still at minimal levels, but we should be able to make it into hyperspace."

"Okay, good. Start bringing the hyperdrive online. We have somewhere to go."

"Coruscant?" Darrik asked as he started keying in the command.

"Actually, no. Key in a course for the Feraan sector; namely, somewhere outside of the planet Acchrin."

Darrik shot his master a perplexed look, but continued keying in the command. "Isn't that a sector on the absolute edge of the Outer Rim?" Darrik asked casually, recalling hours of tedious history lesson that he had been forced to study through when he had first started out with his master.

"Yes, it is. And we're going there to meet someone," Kendal replied to his unspoken question. "I'll show you both who we'll be meeting when Brenden gets back here with Artoo."

As if on cue, the distinctive screech of an astromech droid, namely R2-D2, cut through the cabin deck as the little droid carefully rolled up the ramp and onto the bridge. He partially resembled a trashcan with three retractable wheels on the bottom and a domed top. The droid was painted white and blue, and various buttons covered his surface. Brenden followed behind him, grinning again as he said, "You know, I think that taking these droids out for some adventure was a pretty good idea. They apparently had been bored with just sitting around the Jedi Temple all day without having anything to do."

"If I may say so, sir," Threepio chimed in, following Brenden's statement. "I, personally, was having a fantastic time at the Jedi Temple, assisting the Jedi whenever they required my help. There I was able to be safely used as a translator for various species that came to Coruscant that were seeking to communicate with the Jedi Counsel that did not speak Basic. And, of course, I was only too happy to oblige them, since I am fluent in over six million forms of communication and have been well adapted to serve as a-"

"Anyway…" Kendal interrupted the droid with the long, drawn out word, "to make matters clear for you all; we are about to head for the Feraan Sector, on the very edge of the Outer Rim to meet… a well known friend of mine."

As Kendal began to speak, Darrik sensed through the force a darkening sadness within him, as if he was recalling painful thoughts or trying to tell someone of a great loss on their part. Darrik sensed these emotions like a kind of wave or mist drifting over him. This was how the force had chosen so reveal itself to him, in the way of waves, as it did every Jedi in a different way or form, or so he had been told. Whenever he opened his senses to the force, Darrik felt as if he was being continually washed over by what he sensed around him.

A signal beeped on the control board announcing the Daybreaker's readiness to travel into hyperspace. Darrik spun around in his chair and pushed forward the button that would send them toward the planet Acchrin in the Feraan Sector. With a stream of lines marking the starlights being blurred before them, the Daybreaker took off into the depths of hyperspace.

"To start from the beginning," Kendal began as Darrik turned back around to face him, "while you two, Darrik and Brenden, were taking care of that pirate base back there, I had intercepted an encrypted Universal Alliance transmission from about a week ago that had been sent out from the Unknown Regions of space to Coruscant's Jedi Temple. I, being enough of a Jedi Master to qualify, had the encryption codes with which I used to decode the transmission." His eyes had gone deadly serious now as he said, "the transmission was from the Universal Alliance ship Ecliptic Sun."

Darrik caught the significance of the ship almost imminently and perked his eyebrows up in anxious response. Brenden, on the other hand, had to shift through his memories for a few seconds before finally realizing what hearing about the Ecliptic sun meant.

"So they've finally gotten back?" Darrik asked seriously, his tone showing none of the youthful joking that it had earlier.

The Ecliptic Sun had been the Jedi Order's response to a growing disturbance in the force for the past few months, before the disturbance had abruptly disappeared just a few days ago. Many members of the Jedi Order on Coruscant and other worlds had noticed the growing agitation in the force when the disturbance had first popped up, and they had turned to the Jedi Council to find out what was going on. Many force-sensitives, who did not even know themselves to be sensitive to the force, had come to the Jedi Council, too, to seek out what was causing this nagging sense of dread in the back of their minds.

This "tremor" in the Force, as it had started to be called, had spread to the public as just some sort of "Jedi thing" that meant something bad was or was about to happen somewhere in the galaxy. Most of the citizens had thus ignored it, not understanding the Jedi much anyway. But the acquaintances of Jedi and other such individuals who had found reason to care about this disturbance began checking up with what the Jedi Council was going to do about it.

So the Jedi Council, along with other Jedi from various worlds that had met with them, had come to an agreement to send the massive warship Ecliptic Sun, along with a number of some of the most powerful Jedi Masters and Jedi Knights in the Order, into the Unknown Regions where the disturbance had seemed to emanate from. The Ecliptic Sun had left just over a month ago, and the news had constantly played it since then as the centerpiece of attention, readily awaiting its return with the reason for why there seemed to be a disturbance in the force. That is, until the disturbance had finally disappeared a few days ago. Now, the news was awaiting the Ecliptic Sun's return to find out just what had spooked the Jedi Order so badly and what they had done about it.

"Anyway," Kendal continued, "I recorded the transmission fully decrypted within Artoo, which I think will explain something." He slowly stood up from his chair and bent down next to Artoo. He hit a few keys on the astromech droid's surface, and then took two steps back. A hologram suddenly sprang to life on the surface of the Daybreaker's deck of a figure dressed in a dark brown robe that drifted down to hang a few centimeters off the floor. His light grey hair was long and draped just past his neck, directly above his brown, tight leather-like shirt which had a streak of white on its sides that blossomed downward to his hips. This was met by the same brown leather-like pants that he wore down to his shoes. His face, slightly older than Kendal's, was scarred in several places, but this only seemed to add to the magnificence with which the man held himself. A lightsaber at his belt could be clearly seen, even in the rough projection of the hologram.

"This is one of the three Jedi Grand Masters, Master Avvin Corrind," Kendal said as the hologram prepared to speak. "He was a very good friend of mine during the Ravager Wars, and we have continued to keep in touch, though I have not seen him for a while, now."

"Master Latya Vembrenci, Master Desden Ruellis," the hologram suddenly spoke up, his voice deep and commanding even through the distortion. He bowed slowly as he appeared to address the other two Jedi Grand Masters. "After searching for almost a month, now, I believe we have finally found and eliminated what we think to be the source of this dark side shroud that we have all been feeling recently." He cleared his throat with a short cough and continued. "Our journey, guided only by our senses of where the dark side emanated from, led us to an unexplored galaxy in the Unknown Regions of space. It was in this galaxy that we came to a distant world of what is said to be called Korriban."

Darrik's head flinched back in shock when Avvin mentioned the name of the planet. The Sith homeworld of Korriban was almost completely avoided by the Jedi, due to its almost overwhelming nexus of dark side energy that swelled within its core from the multitude of Sith Lords that were buried there. The fact that the name of this world should appear again, deep within another galaxy in the Unknown Regions of space, was disturbing.

Darrik felt Brenden's own wave of bewilderment in the military pilot's emotions as he caught on to what the Jedi Grand Master had said. Darrik chanced a look at his master who he could feel bristling with anxiety just below the surface, but saw him only sitting there, very still, wide-eyed and intently focused on the hologram that he was watching for at least the second time.

"After studying the planet more closely," the hologram continued, the Grand Jedi Master's voice ragged, "we have determined that the name for this planet is likely to be the origin of the Korriban that we know. We scanned the entire planet from the Ecliptic Sun's scanners and found irregularities along the crust in multiple places across the world. It appears that some kind of cataclysmic explosion had occurred here millenniums ago and had fractured about a third of the planet, along with a portion of its core, off into the distances of space. The planet's own crust apparently then began forming over the part of the core that was still exposed, somehow keeping the plant from disintegrating upon itself with a third of its mass missing. Where the crust merged above the core of the planet, a crested mountaintop began to form, and this mountaintop can now be clearly seen from the Ecliptic Sun's viewport as one of the highest points on the planet."

He paused again, and then stated in a slightly more personal voice, "I don't think that any other planet could have survived with its core being so off-centered like this, but I think that the dark side energies that expel outward from this world were somehow able to hold it together." His voice then returned to normal as if speaking to equals, and he continued. "I also believe that the part of this planet that was blown off, the piece of rock that had a small fraction of the core still located within it, drifted through space until it had finally settled in the Horuset System, where the Korriban that we know is located. Somehow, that hunk of rock must have mended itself into a planet with the dark side energies that still lingered in its partial core, and eventually became the homeworld for the first Sith."

The figure of Avvin Corrind paused again, and his eyebrows and head lowered just noticeably as he shifted his posture. He then tilted his head back up and continued his report, emotions of anxiety now coloring the Jedi Grand Master's voice. "The crested mountain ridge where the planet's core was located closest to the surface was where the disturbance in the force radiated from. After a brief discussion, we decided to go down onto the surface of this Korriban and discover what exactly was happening. As we neared the mountain ridge, we noticed that the world's natural vegetation seemed to be scarred away from the mountain, and we could feel the dark side within the very air as we approached. We finally made it to the base of the crested mountains and discovered a fortress built into the side of the mountains themselves, made of an unidentifiable black stone that reached up to the very height of the mountaintops. It was then that we sensed the presence of a powerful Sith Lord from within the fortress, hidden from detection within the dark side energies."

Darrik saw Brenden jerk back visibly at the mention of a Sith Lord, and felt through the force a wave fear. This mixed with his own emotions of distress that made his arms tense up involuntarily. He let out a slow breath and zoned back into what the Jedi Grand Master was saying.

"We apprehensively entered the fortress, our lightsabers drawn, and eventually came into a room where a massive metal pillar stood linking the floor to the ceiling. The pillar looked as if it could have gone down miles into the ground, like a giant mining shaft. Suspended in the middle of this pillar, in a shield of pure energy around its steel frame, was the unconscious form of a young woman, around the age of twenty. Before we had a chance to go over to her, the Sith Lord who we had sensed from outside appeared from behind the giant pillar. The Sith Lord was a female Twi'lek, with light red skin and a dark cloak around her. She claimed herself to be," Avvin choked on the word for a second, and then stammered out, "Darth Vidaris, one of the Dark Jedi defectors during the Ravager War. She had joined the Sith Lords Darth Aumbian and Darth Reszrinn near the end of the war, and when the two Sith had been destroyed, she vanished, too; previously thought to have been killed in an explosion on Mustafar not long after the war had ended.

"When we met her, she confidently challenged herself to us, claiming to know more about the force then we could possibly imagine, and then pulled from beneath her black cloak two bright red lightsabers, one which she wielded overhanded, and the other she wielded underhanded. A long and vicious duel then ensued, proving that she had extremely skilled training with this underhanded and overhanded form of lightsaber combat as well as an impressive array of dark side powers that she used against us throughout the duel. Though we definitely had the numbers on our side, at a total of eighteen of the strongest Jedi Masters and Jedi Knights in the Jedi Order with us, she proved to be quite a challenge. At the end of the fervent duel, she had killed two of the twelve Jedi Masters and one of the six Jedi Knights before we were finally able to defeat her."

The Grand Jedi Master looked down dismally as if recalling the past death of his fellow comrades, and then claimed, "Her defeat, though, was probably credited more to an outcome of chance than to our abilities to overcome her powers… In the midst of our struggles with the Twi'lek Sith, the energy shield in the pillar where the young girl had been suspended suddenly seemed to… implode upon itself. This sent a shock wave out in all directions from the pillar that threw many of the Jedi who were concentrated on fighting the Sith Lord skidding across the floor as if a large gust of wind had suddenly caught them unawares. It was at that moment that the Sith Lord Vidaris became visibly distracted by the shock wave for a fraction of a second. One of our Jedi Knights, Cyrinity Surik, took this momentary pause in the Sith's attention to her advantage as she force flung herself into the oncoming shock wave and in the process landed a crippling blow to the Sith Lord right before the shock wave sent them both spiraling into the air.

"Vidaris could do nothing as she fell hard onto her back, clutching her slashed abdomen in pain. Once the shock wave had passed, I went over to her myself and found her still clinging to life, despite a fatal gash across her torso where Cyrinity's lightsaber had found its mark. Using the last remnants of the dark side within her, I saw her turn her head in order to look me in the eye. Her smile was a wicked, twisted grin as she mumbled out through crushed lungs a cold, ruthless laugh, and then stated, 'Goodbye, Jedi Grand Master Avvin Corrind, along with your, minions… I hope… that you… will be able to provide him with enough of a challenge.' Her head then fell limply to the floor as her sith Spirit slowly dissipated, a feral smile still upon her lips."

The Jedi Grand Master's eyes winced, his face clearly reliving the events in his mind. "It was when she died that myself and the other Jedi Masters suddenly felt the ebbing away of the almost continual dark side presence that we had been experiencing for the past weeks. It was as if a dangerous veil had been suddenly lifted, and we were able to think clearly again."

The figure of Avvin Corrind cleared his throat again and continued. "After this sudden realization through the force and the death of Darth Vidaris, I hurried over to the young girl who had been flung aside during the shockwave from the pillar. I expected to find her dead, either by electrocution or by continual exposure to the dark side's energy, but when I came over to her limp figure, she was still breathing, though very shallow. I tried to wake her, but she seemed to be in a kind of Jedi stasis, as if in a deep slumber. She was definitely force-sensative, I was sure of that, but there seemed to be something… different, about her, about her emotions and spirit which contained both light and dark conflicting essences. But it was not like you would expect from someone who had been exposed to the dark side's power and was being slowly corrupted. It was…" Avvin Corrind seemed to grimace in the hologram as if trying to come up with exactly how he should word something. He finally just said, "it was… different. I'll explain more about this when we get back, where you can see for yourselves."

"But, to continue my story; as soon as I had failed to wake the young girl, myself and the other remaining Jedi Masters and Knights suddenly felt an abrupt, violent tremor that resonated throughout the ground of the fortress, expanding away from the massive pillar that the shockwave had come from earlier. I warily stepped toward the pillar and was able to bend my head over into where the energy field had been and looked down the giant shaft of the pillar. The shaft descended for miles, and in the distance, I could make out what looked like lava or fire that was swirling around itself and making sporadic, fiery discharges into the surrounding air. As another tremor resonated within the fortress, I became convinced that this fiery swirl was, in fact, the off-centered core of the planet. It was then that the Ecliptic Sun called in and told us that the entire planet of Korriban was becoming unstable and was being crushed into itself by its off-center core. The Sith Lord, I believe, was one of the only things that had been holding the planet together, and with her death, the core could not contain its own gravity enough to balance out the planet, and therefore the world began to implode upon itself."

The Jedi Grand Master briefly starred at something offscreen, and then returned his attention to the hologram and said, "As soon as we realized this, the fifteen remaining Jedi began to move out of the fortress towards the dropships that we had come down in. We brought the young girl back to the dropships, hoping to find out what exactly happened to her and Vidaris. We made it to the dropships and back to the Ecliptic Sun before the planet of Korriban collapsed, and it was on the Ecliptic Sun that we were able to identify the young girl we had rescued as a former Jedi padwan. Her name was Amirrya Bray, who had been supposedly killed during the Ravager War by Darth Reszrinn, shortly before he himself had been destroyed."

Avvin Corrind looked offscreen again, and even through the distortion of the hologram, one could see the perplexities swirling within his eyes at these facts. He then composed himself once more into a Jedi Grand Master and addressed his peers. "After finding this out, I was informed that the planet of Korriban was about to be completely destroyed by its own collapsing core, and I went to the bridge to watch the planet that I had just recently evacuated. The crested mountain range where the fortress had been was starting to be replaced by a fiery red slash of crimson as mountains collapsed down into the core of the planet. The rest of the planet was crisscrossed with deep fissures that radiated out from the crested mountain range."

The Jedi Grand Master grimaced and said, "I would never say that it is easy to see the destruction of a planet, but for this one, I was at least relieved that the dark side nexus that had built up around its core could never be used for the dark side again. Once the scarred world could take the stress no more, it shattered, a huge explosion erupting from the remnants of its core and throwing the rest of the rock from the planet into a wide arc as it branched outward into the recesses of space. Even aboard such a colossal ship as the Ecliptic sun, the resulting shock wave that hit us from the explosion hit hard enough to knock a percentage of our shields down as we all watched the world in front of us disintegrating…

"My guess, Masters, as to what exactly had caused the horrible dark side disturbance that we had all sensed earlier through the force was within the core of this planet Korriban itself. Darth Vidaris, while as strong of a Sith Lord as I might ever face again, was not nearly strong enough to have cast her presence so far into our galaxy. I believe that she was trying to use Korriban's core to strengthen herself, though, and that the core's volatile state, combined with her dark side intentions, led to the disturbance throughout the force that we all felt. I also think that she was using the young Jedi girl, Amirrya Bray, to transfer the power from the planet's core into the pillar without having the energy go through herself directly. I imagine that the pain to have so much energy going through you at once would be extremely painful, if not fatal over time, which explains why Vidaris did not want to do it herself. But the person who was used to transfer this energy also had to be a strong force-sensative individual that the dark side energies of the core could gather around and therefore make the transfer successfully. That would have made Amirrya a perfect candidate, with her history of being a Jedi. I also believe that Vidaris herself was planning to take all this power from the pillar for herself somehow when it had finally completed the transfer. But something must have gone wrong with the machine, or else the young Jedi had done something, for I can't explain why it seemed to suddenly break off in its connection to the core in the middle of our duel."

The figure of the Jedi Grand Master shook his head twice and said, "There were many things that happened here that I can not fully explain, only guess at. Hopefully, if and when Amirrya finally wakes up, she will be able to tell us." He dropped his voice slightly, "…if she has not yet fallen to the dark side and has lost her sanity from this ordeal. I have no idea of how long she has even been here, only that her face was scarred and tired. It could be anywhere from a few months to years; I just don't know. I will refrain from trying to wake her on our way back, for fear of whom or what she will be when she awakens, but I have hope for her… I can feel it in the force… Anyway, we should be back within a week of you receiving this hologram. We shall be appearing in the Feraan sector, should you need us immediately when we return. We have also brought the Jedi that were killed in the battle with the Sith Lord Vidaris, to be given a proper burial." The figure of Avvin Corrind sighed, and he then finished his transmission with, "Hopefully, this incident will prevent another Sith Lord from threatening the Universal Alliance in the near future, or anyone else for that matter. May the force be with you, Masters… Always…" He bowed his head down low, and the transmission finally ended as the hologram flickered out of existence.

Darrik was leaned up against the back of his chair, his sweaty palms gripped tightly to the armrests as his mind struggled to comprehend all that had been said in the transmission. His face was a look of confusion, mixed slightly with fear and awe. In the back of his mind, he was dimly aware that he was mirroring Brenden, who sat across from him on the other side of Kendal. Kendal, on the other hand, was sitting in his chair very benignly, and if Darrik hadn't of known better, he would have thought that his master was perfectly relaxed.

Kendal stirred in his chair, and as he lifted his hands away from his mouth he said softly, to no one in particular, "And that is who we are going to be meeting soon." He then quickly shook out of his stupor and looked at Darrik with the half-smile that his master usually harbored. "Any questions?" he asked, half grinning.

"Only a few," Darrik replied sarcastically, understating his state of mind immensely.

"How in the world did you, did I, manage to get caught up in all this?!" Brenden broke out, clearly having stifled his responses against his will the entire time that they had been watching the hologram, and now letting them all flow out into one sentence. His tone, though, was more one of amazement than fear.

"I guess it's just the way the Taun-Taun stumbles," Darrik replied with a vague shrug, concealing his grin behind a twitch in his mouth. "Anyway, Master?" he asked, turning to look Kendal in the eye. "Who exactly was the Jedi Amirrya Bray?"

"Ah, Amirrya," Kendal replied thoughtfully, leaning back in his chair. "I met Amirrya only briefly during her time in the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, since I never taught her directly. The few times I did meet her, though, she left a serious impression upon me. Her way of thinking was much closer to mine as it is now than how it was back then. She was a very talented padwan, both with lightsaber combat and with the force, and she had a unique way of using the force to help others when they were struggling. I believe that she even almost defeated a Jedi Master once while sparring, while she was only eight. She was on the very verge of becoming a Jedi Knight, and was already better then many of them, when the Ravager Wars started. Near the ending of the war, after seven years of continuous fighting against the two Sith Lords, she and her Master were captured on the planet of Kashyyyk, the Wookie homeworld, where they had been sent to defend against an oncoming invasion. Darth Reszrinn himself had come down onto the planet, and it was said that he had uprooted the colossal wroshyr trees of that world himself, using the force to fling them out of his way, to get to the two Jedi. Amirrya's master had been reportedly killed by Darth Reszrinn, along with herself, deep in the jungles of Kashyyyk, though only her Master's body had been found amongst the ruins. Apparently, Amirrya did survive, if this girl aboard the Ecliptic Sun is truly her. I remember morning her loss, after the war had ended, along with a list of other Jedi casualties that I had known." Kendal's eyes spaced off for a second, and then he shook his head and looked back to the two men. "Any more questions?"


	3. Chapter III

Future's Sacrifice III

For the next couple of hours, as the Daybreaker traveled through hyperspace towards the Feraan Sector, the three men discussed all that they had seen in the hologram sent by the Jedi Grand Master Avvin Corrind. Both Darrik and Brenden seemed to be taking in all the information this time. With an impending meeting with the Jedi Grand Master on its way, they both wanted to know his and Kendal's history together. It was about two hours of continuous discussion about this and everything else in Avvin Corrind's message before the subject finally drifted on to something else, with frequent parallels leading back to the hologram's message.

Finally, the Daybreaker announced that it would be coming out of hyperspace soon, and the three men and Threepio gathered on the bridge. The hypnotic starlines that they had been watching for the past two hours abruptly melded back into the bright lights of distant stars as the Daybreaker pounced into the open space of the Feraan sector.

"So, how long do you think it will be until they get here?" Brenden asked as he quickly gazed around their new but empty surroundings. They had reappeared near one of Acchrin's moons, and Acchrin itself was visible in the background as a silhouette against the stars.

"It could be minutes, or it could be hours," Kendal replied as he laid back into his chair, his neck tilting back on the headrest and his eyes closing slightly as he stretched his arms out behind him. "But if I'm right about Avvin's trajectory, then the Ecliptic Sun should wind up appearing right in front of us, between Acchrin and this moon."  
"Anyway," Brenden said, stifling a yawn as he himself sat back in his chair and swung his feet up to prop against the controls, "since we probably won't be seeing the Ecliptic Sun for a while, now, you guys can wake me when we-,"

"Darrik!" Kendal suddenly exclaimed, bolting upright in his chair as he did so. "Darrik, get us out of here, now!"

The urgency in his Masters voice kept Darrik's fingers moving across the controls as he powered up the engines. "Master," he asked, bewildered, "what is-"

A force awareness sense suddenly flooded through his mind, and it said that he had to get out of there now, and fast. He began maneuvering the engines even as Brenden, now fully awake, asked distraughtly, "W-wait, what's, what's going-"

His voice became a low gasp of surprise as Darrik threw the ion engine's thrusters forward, and the Daybreaker shot onward into the open space. The small starcruiser then flew up into a tight loop as Darrik pulled against the controls fervently, his eyes focusing intently on the control board's readings. The Daybreaker was at the top of the loop when Darrik's eyes suddenly widened in astonishment as he stared beyond the transparisteel of the ship's bridge.

With a wave of pseudomotion announcing its arrival, the Ecliptic Sun suddenly materialized out of hyperspace, spinning wildly on its axes towards the Daybreaker.

The Ecliptic Sun itself resembled something like the combined shape of two Imperial Star Destroyers that had been joined together at the back where the engines were located. The front and back of this figure was then split in half lengthwise until it sloped upward towards a type of command decking above where the engines of two Imperial Star Destroyers would have converged. It was a magnificent ship, being well over twice the size of an Imperial Star Destroyer, and having an impressive display of military might backing its figure.

The bad thing about the Ecliptic Sun was the fact that the entire back half of the ship, where the engines were, was charred black from some kind of internal explosion, and was now careening wildly towards the Daybreaker.

"Oh my!" Threepio exclaimed, adding his common outcry to the stem of alarms that suddenly began going off within the Daybreaker as the Ecliptic Sun spiraled towards the smaller ship. Darrik desperately rolled his hands across the controls as he began to send the Daybreaker into a sideways spiral, away from the approaching ship. He was almost clear of the Ecliptic Sun's spiral path when the remaining engines of the massive warship began slowly tilting sideways, straight towards the Daybreaker. Darrik desperately dropped the small starcruiser into a nosedive as the colossal ion engines of the Ecliptic Sun passed over right where they had been, scathing the Daybreaker with intense heat as they did so. Then the warship hurtled past them, and Darrik brought the Daybreaker out of its sudden nosedive and spun the ship around to look back toward the Ecliptic Sun's spiral descent.

With alarm bells still ringing in his ears, Darrik's eyes widened in horror as he witnessed the blackened, charred half of the Ecliptic Sun impale straight into the center of moon that they had been next to just seconds before. The moon was unable to take the sudden stress and, in a spectacular explosion, it shattered itself along with half of the Ecliptics Sun's charred end. A massive grey explosion of rock and metal resulted as both the moon and ship sent a cloud of debris scattering outward from the point of impact.

Darrik and Brenden starred in horror at the scene, and only the sight of a giant hunk of rock from the moon zooming towards them brought them out of their stupor. Darrik swerved the Daybreaker agilely away from the incoming rock with a twist of his wrist, his heart still pounding with adrenaline as his eyes scanned the area for any other incoming projectiles.

The giant cloud of dust from the explosion was still expanding when Kendal commanded soberly, "Darrik, bring us in to dock with the Ecliptic Sun, now!"

Darrik obeyed wordlessly and began slowly bringing the Daybreaker in towards the massive warship, which was still partly shrouded by the exploded moon's dust wave. The Ecliptic Sun was drifting idly through the explosion, inactive without any engines left, and looking to all appearances to be deserted. None of the ship's shields were active, and as asteroids came out of the dust wave from the moon, they impacted against the sides of the ship without remorse, causing miniature explosions all over. Half of the Ecliptic Sun's entirety was either charred a deep black or gone completely from where the ship had collided with the moon.

Darrik reached cautiously out in the force towards the massive remnants of the warship, expecting to find a wave of uncontrolled anxiety and fear from the crewmembers aboard. But, after reaching out to the point of where the ship should have been, Darrik felt an odd wave of, -nothing-, coming from the vessel. He could not sense any anxiety, or fear, or anything else. But it wasn't as if there were no lifeforms aboard, either. It was as if the Ecliptic Sun wasn't even there, and no amount of force probing could penetrate this nothingness.

Darrik drew his force senses back from the drifting warship and, with his eyebrows drawn up, turned to his master in perplexity, wondering if he had sensed it, too.

"Yes, I do," Kendal whispered gravely to his unvoiced question. "Something is either hiding that ship from us in the force, or this is an illusion of some kind… I have no idea which." He looked towards Brenden and asked, "Brenden, do we have high enough energy shield levels to play dodge-the-asteroid for a while?"

"Um…," Brenden said, drawing his eyes back from the mangled starship. "Our rear shields are practically nonexistent, and our hull doesn't seem to be in too of good of shape… I'd not suggest playing dodge-the-asteroid just yet."

"Oh, well. We'll just have to not get hit. Darrik, take us in to dock with the Ecliptic Sun; we have to find out what happened. They should have at least of sent a panic transmission out on all frequencies by now, if their transmitters are still operable. Of course, their transmitters could be blocked as well." His eyes narrowed as he looked out toward the massive warship, his hands cupped under his chin. "This is not good…"

A tense silence followed, and as Darrik began lining up the Daybreaker towards a docking station near the command center of the massive warship, he heard Brenden gulp into the silence. Even Threepio was unusually quiet; his droid programming apparently realizing that this was not the best time to suggest that he might help guard the ship after they landed.

The Daybreaker hovered closer to the Ecliptic Sun, and Darrik could see with fine detail the destruction along it's charred half. Many of the transparisteel windows were blown open, and debris floated freely throughout the vacuum. There were no bodies, though, which suggested that the blackened half of the warship had been at least evacuated before it had collided with the moon.

Then, right as the Daybreaker had lined up perfectly with the docking station and began to dock, a sudden force sensation washed over Darrik. It was as if he had just emerged from a bubble, and he could abruptly sense everything about the Ecliptic Sun that he couldn't sense earlier. Thousands of crewmember's fear and anxiety hit him first through a tangled wave of emotions that he had trouble taking in. But then, through all the havoc and chaos, he could also feel very focused clusters of force energy that he assumed where the Jedi Masters and Jedi Knights that were still onboard the warship. Kendal had apparently noticed this sudden emergence from the force, too, for he twitched his head back slightly, and then looked at Darrik and nodded.

"As soon as we land, follow my lead," Kendal muttered, turning his attention back to the outside of the Ecliptic Sun.

As soon as the Daybreaker engaged in its docking sequence, Kendal stood up from his seat in one smooth motion, his robe swooping up behind him, and wordlessly headed towards the doorway in the back of the Daybreaker that led to the Ecliptic Sun's air lock. Darrik and Brenden both got up from their seats and, with a shrug towards each other, promptly followed.

As the two men trailed Kendal to the back of the ship, Darrik tried reaching out in the force again, this time towards the door beyond the air lock that led to the docking passage into the Ecliptic Sun. He felt a strong cluster of force energy right outside the door, along with some other entities, and assumed a Jedi, or someone else strong in the force, was waiting for them outside of the docking passage, along with a couple of other people.

"Do you think they know we're here?" Brenden whispered to him as they made their way farther into the back of the ship.

"Probably," Darrik whispered back, "we are, after all, about to board a vessel filled with Jedi Masters and Jedi Knights. Besides, someone is waiting just beyond the docking passage for us." Darrik glimpsed Brenden's look of distress at this and assured, "don't worry, I don't sense any ill attempt from them. But still, I wouldn't let your guard down."

The two men finally caught up to Kendal right before he stopped by the Daybreaker's central doorway to the airlock off of the ship. Kendal waved his arm up and the door slid open. A slightly new, clean smell assaulted their noses from the other ship. The three men marched through the door into the air lock, and then to the next door on the far side of the enclosed hallway.

"Ready?" Kendal asked over his shoulder as he stopped directly in front of the door, his lightsaber sliding out of his belt and into his left hand.

"I don't sense any ill attempt, Master," Darrik replied, though he slid his own lightsaber out from concealment behind his belt.

"Me, either. But then again, a few minutes ago we didn't sense this ship at all."

Darrik nodded admittedly and brought his lightsaber hilt up to his chest with his right hand, his fingers twirling the handle back and forth out of habit. Brenden, beside him, pulled out a slightly customized Universal Alliance issue blaster pistol from his side holster and brought it up to his chest as well, his eyes darting around the transparisteel windows around him, ready for action.

"Okay, then," Kendal stated, and, with a wave of his hand, the door in front of them shot up.

The door rose, and the three men found themselves in a large, plain white room in one of the Ecliptic Sun's docking bays. Facing them on the far side of the room was a female Twi'lek with six Universal Alliance naval officers arranged behind her, all with weapons trained on the trio's bodies. The Twi'lek had a deep blue hue to her skin and her lekku of two tentacles from the back of her head hung slightly lopsided as she appeared to study the newcomers. She wore long, brown pants and a black top just above her stomach, exposing her arms and shoulders for free maneuverability. Both of her hands were stretched down to her thighs on either side of her, and in each hand she held an inactivated lightsaber hilt.

"Master Sundair?" she asked questioningly, her face not quite concealing the surprise in her voice as she tilted her head slightly and her lekku responded accordingly.

"Yes, I am he," Kendal responded, and he saw the Twi'lek's shoulders visibly slacken as she apparently sensed the truth of his words through the force.

"It… it is an honor to meet you," she bowed shyly, her eyebrows still raised in surprise. "Master Avvin Corrind speaks very highly of you…"

The Twi'lek then abruptly turned to face the naval officers behind her. Their weapons were held down, but they were still clearly alert for the slightest hint of malignance.

"It's alright, I sense no intentions of harm from them," she said commandingly while sliding her own inactivated lightsaber hilts back into her brown belt. "Lieutenant Teriius, you may return to the bridge and tell Master Avvin Corrind that we will be seeing him shortly." She looked back to the trio and asked, "If that is okay with you?"

"Yes; of course," Kendal replied.

The Lieutenant beside the Twi'lek crisply saluted her. Then, with a brief nod towards Kendal, he led his men away and into the next hallway where they disappeared from sight.

"I'm sorry to make this kind of rushed," the Twi'lek said, "but if you haven't noticed already, half of our ship has just been disintegrated, and we don't really have much time to discuss matters. But, before I rush you off to the bridge, I would like to at least introduce myself. My name is Jedi Knight Cyrinity Surik, one of the Jedi Knights that was brought aboard the Ecliptic Sun for our mission. After being unable to properly send out a transmission to your vessel, I was sent down here right after we collided with the moon to meet whoever was aboard your ship, hoping to find some sort of help. However, I could not sense anyone aboard your vessel until just a few moments ago, so I was unsure if you were an ally or enemy. I was very relieved, if a bit surprised, when I sensed that it was you, Master Sundair. I'll tell you what I can about," she waved her hands around her, indicating the ship and it's destruction, "this, on our way to the bridge."

"Will we need our droids?" Brenden asked awkwardly into the conversation, and Darrik felt the embarrassment though his emotions.

Cyrinity, obviously feeling this too, dropped her serious expression and smiled slightly. "Well, if any of your droids' feel up to having a logical conversation with the Ecliptic Sun's computer about why it sent us spiraling straight into a moon, then go right ahead."

"Right, I'll go get them then," Brenden said awkwardly, and then, after a moment's pause, he hurriedly went back through the air lock to retrieve the two droids from the Daybreaker.

"Cyrinity, you said you couldn't sense us onboard our ship when we were arriving?" Kendal asked.

"Yes, exactly. We had picked up your ship on our sensors right before we collided with the moon. So then I came down here to meet you, but I couldn't feel anyone aboard. I thought for a second that the ship was controlled by remote, but even that would have left a small impression in the force. I sensed absolutely nothing from you, until just a few minutes ago, right as you began to dock. That's why I wasn't in one of my friendlier appearance when you came in, with lightsabers in hand and a couple of guards at my back."

"We couldn't sense anything from this ship, either, until just before we began to dock," Darrik spoke up. "It felt like something was shrouding this ship from contact with the force."

Cyrinity turned her attention to Darrik, and her eyebrows creased as she took in his statement. Finally, she said, "We'll need to tell this to Master Avvin Corrind… Apparently we're being enclosed within a force bubble of some sort… by something..." She shivered slightly, and then looked back at Darrik. "I'm sorry; I didn't get your name?"

"Darrik Fate," Darrik replied cooly, "Master Kendal Sundair's padwan, basically. And that military pilot that went back to get our droids is Brenden Durrath. He's currently traveling with us."

"Ah," Cyrinity nodded, and then looked up as the silence was pierced by the almost pleading cries of Threepio. The three Jedi turned around and saw Threepio stumbling clumsily through the airlock, followed by Artoo and then Brenden.

"But Master Brenden!" Threepio cried out in his prissy, metallic voice. "Who is going to guard the ship while you're away?! I'm sure that Artoo alone could interpret this ship's computer just fine without my help. I'll just stay right over here and serve as a-"

Brenden shoved Threepio the last few feet through the air lock after Artoo. He then stepped in himself and, with a slight grin, shut the door.

"Oops. Sorry Threepio. You're locked in, now." He said mock-seriously.

"Oh dear..."

"Anyway," Cyrinity said forcefully, stifling a chuckle. "If you all will follow me to escort you to the bridge, I would be happy to show you to Master Avvin Corrind. It's not far from here, though I would suggest we still hurry."

With a gesture to follow, Cyrinity turned away and started walking towards the hallway that the guards had followed earlier. The three men followed behind her, the two droids bringing up the rear.

"Um," she stumbled over the words for a second as the men came up behind her, and then asked, "Have you by any chance intercepted the transmission we sent to Coruscant about a week ago, Master Sundair? I know you are, for all intensive purposes, a Jedi Master, and I figured that you might have the correct decryption codes to decode it."

"We intercepted the transmission a few hours ago, actually." Kendal replied. "We know everything about what happened at this… other Korriban, you talked about." His voice let in a hint of sadness as he said, "and the Sith Lord Darth Vidaris, along with the young Jedi girl Amirrya Bray."

The Twi'lek's step barely faltered as Kendal mentioned the Sith Lord's name, but he still sensed it through his acute sense of the force.

"Yes, well, ever since we left the destroyed remains of that Korriban, right after sending the transmission, the Jedi Masters and Jedi Knights have felt something very… odd, within the force. The Masters had picked up on it first, and thought it only to be a side effect of the waning dark side disturbance, the tremor in the force, that we had all been feeling for the past few weeks. But then, as the rest of the Jedi began sensing this growing agitation, too, we wondered if it was something else. If you reach out for yourself, Master Sundair, I am sure you will feel what I am talking about."

Darrik closed his eyes after Cyrinity said this and let the force flow through him to the surroundings of the unfamiliar ship. He sensed what he had before, the crewmembers' anxiety and fear, the few clustered cores of energy that marked the Jedi, and various other tiny nuances. However, in the back of his mind, he could feel something that could only be described as a tension throughout the force, like a clashing color stretched across the background of a painting.

Darrik opened his eyes and looked at his master. His master's face was a reflection of his own, with a wrinkled brow that seemed to ponder what he had just felt. "Yes, I feel it," Kendal finally said. "And so how did this –tension– lead into half of a ship being disintegrated?"

Cyrinity sighed deeply, and then said, "After departing the remains of Korriban and going into hyperspace, we had discovered this background tension throughout the force. We had ignored it at first, but then, as it seemed to become stronger, we sent out small expeditions of Jedi and military personnel throughout the ship to try and pinpoint the source. We found nothing. Then, about a couple days after leaving Korriban, one of our engines abruptly stopped working in the middle of hyperspace. Normally, this would have locked in a failsafe that would have brought us out of hyperspace, but somehow this had been overridden by our computer. We then spent the next few days arguing with the computer, and trying to reestablish control of this vessel's hyperspace capabilities, without success. During these few days, security cams started going haywire due to some kind of interference throughout the computer's systems, and other minor parts of the ship began malfunctioning as well. We sent search parties out, along with Jedi, to try and find whatever we could that was causing these disturbances. And all along, this force tension remained in the force and the depths of our minds, never wavering or changing, and keeping us from accurately predicting what was happening and where it would happen.

"Then, just over a day ago, a gas chamber that was being used to power the remaining ion engines suddenly sprang an undetected leak throughout the ship. The Jedi were unable to detect its presence, however, until it was too late, due to the tension in the force that we had been experiencing."

Cyrinity winced as she continued this next sentence. "One of the scout parties that was headed by the Jedi Knight Siala Minzove suddenly ran into… something, near the engines where the gas had leaked. The security cams were down, and, besides the sudden jolt of fear from Siala, the only idea we have of what happened down there came from a soldier in the group that had been reporting in and had had his comm on at the time. It started with a shout of fear from Siala, and then the unmistakable sound of a blaster bolt being fired. But that was all we heard, for as soon as the blaster bolt left the barrel, it had ignited the gas leak that had been making its way through the ship. In a few seconds, the entire back half of the Ecliptic Sun had been charred black in a massive heat wave as the gas engulfed everything within. Along with Siala and a few thousand crewmembers, two other Jedi were killed in that explosion, burned to death by the intense heat of the gas…

"Luckily for us, if this tale is in any way lucky, the gas had spread to only half of the ship when it had been ignited, and this saved the rest of our lives. The ion engine where the gas had leaked had been burned out due to the intense heat, along with two other ion engines, and this left the Ecliptic Sun with only four working engines as it traveled through hyperspace. Again, the failsafe failed, ironically enough, and the Ecliptic Sun continued on through hyperspace without coming back into realspace.

"And finally, right before we came out of hyperspace a few minutes ago, two more of the ion engines had mysteriously exploded. With only two working ion engines left as the Ecliptic Sun came out of hyperspace, it spun wildly and thus crashed straight into this moon." Cyrinity's shoulders, which had been bunching up during her telling of her story, slowly loosened. "And now, I want to find out what in the universe is going on around here."

A moment of silence began to stretch by once Cyrinity had finished. The three men walked on, speechless, their footsteps echoing loudly across the white-tiled flooring of the Ecliptic Sun's hallways.

Finally, Brenden dared break the silence and suggested, "Maybe Vidaris somehow lived through your fight, and then snuck aboard once everyone began evacuating the fortress on Korriban. That would explain everything weird that's been going on, right?"

Cyrinity kept walking during his statement, and after a few seconds more she slowed her stride to match his. When she started talking again, Darrik could fell the tears in her voice and her emotions.

"The battle with the Sith Lord Vidaris," she began, "was a brutal and savage fight that left many of us who faced her scarred. She was strong in the dark side aspect of the force, and her dueling skills were well beyond my own. In the end, though, I, personally, was able to finally fell her after the pillar's energy shield had distracted her for a few seconds. The blow I landed on her took her full strength in the dark side to survive for just a few seconds, just long enough to tell Master Avvin Corrind of his impending doom. I know that she was not strong enough to have survived after giving him her message, and I doubt that even Darth Bane or Darth Revan could have survived long after withstanding a blow like that. Also, I do not believe that, though she was powerful, Vidaris had a command of the dark side of the force that would allow her to hide her presence aboard a ship full of some of the strongest Jedi Masters and Knights in the galaxy. Personally, I believe that something else is afoot here."

Silence flooded the corridor, and was matched awkwardly with the echoing sounds of their footsteps. Even Threepio was uncharacteristically quiet.

Cyrinity smiled wanly into the silence, as she herself sensed the morbidity emanating from the other three men. Then, with a note of formality in her tone, she said, "I'm sorry; I did not mean to express my anger so much." She looked up towards a door centered in the hallway. "And… here we are."

The four of them walked quietly through the doorway and found themselves in the central bridge complex of the Ecliptic Sun. It was a massive dome shaped room with passageways leading to and from it on every level of walkways that crisscrossed each other until they hit the dome's roof. Crewmembers were busily scurrying around everywhere, addressing warning signs that kept flashing every couple of seconds that announced an incoming asteroid hitting the ship's surface, or some other sign of trouble. Other Jedi were in this dome, too, no doubt trying to help monitor the situation. A section to the far left of the bridge was dedicated to bacta treatment, and it had a long hallway of bacta tanks and other medical supplies at its end. On the opposite side of the bridge, there was the control section where the central viewport was located, where one could still see the haze of dust from the moon blanketing outward. In the midst of the room, standing over a giant computer complex, stood the figure of Avvin Corrind talking hurriedly with one of the crewmembers.

Avvin turned his head as soon as they had walked in. He abruptly ended his conversation with the crewmember and strode purposefully toward them, a troubled smile spreading across his lined face.

"It's good to see you again, Kendal," Avvin said in a raspy, hardened voice as he walked over to his old friend and hugged him tightly, leaving all formalities of being the Jedi Grand Master behind.

"It's good to see you, too, old friend," Kendal replied, clearly relieved at seeing his friend again. "I only wish that it were under better of circumstances."

"Don't we all?" Avvin remarked, his brown robe flowing out behind him. "I was told that you were coming here a few minutes ago by Lieutenant Terrius, and I couldn't have asked for anyone I needed more. I'm assuming that Cyrinity has already told you of what has transpired here over the past few weeks?"

"Yes, she has," Darrik said, meeting Avvin's eyes for the first time.

A two second pause, and then Avvin said, "Darrik Fate, I'm assuming?"

"Yes, sir."

Avvin smiled. "It's good to finally meet you; I've heard a lot about what Kendal has been teaching you. I was wondering if he would ever find the time to let me meet you." Avvin then cut his eyes away from Darrik and to Brenden. "And you are…?"

"Brenden Durrath, sir," Brenden replied, snapping to military attention. "I'm a Universal Alliance Military pilot, and I'm now currently working as a technician, traveling with these guys for a few days." He bobbed his head towards Kendal and Darrik, "They're pretty fun, albeit a bit reckless."

Avvin smiled again, the grizzled look of sadness across his face vanishing almost completely. "I wouldn't have expected anything less." His face then hardened once more and he frowned slightly. "Now then, may I ask you three to help me find out what in the universe is going on around here?"


	4. Chapter IV

Future's Sacrifice – Chapter IV

Three hours later, both Threepio and Artoo were hooked up to the central computer terminal on the bridge, trying to gain a small entryway into the computer's main override commands in order to get the Ecliptic Sun's systems running again. The four men, along with Cyrinity, were sitting around the massive computer complex, knowing fully well that if the Ecliptic Sun's own engineers couldn't hack into the computer's systems, then the droid's own attempts were practically useless. But they let them try anyway, if only to cease Threepio's constant complaining.

The explosion from the moon had settled into a rocky haze around the Ecliptic Sun by now, and no more sizable asteroids were impacting against its surface. So far, no transmissions had been received from Acchrin, and the sparsely populated planet seemed oblivious to their plight. The Ecliptic Sun's crew was currently working on repairing the transponders that an asteroid had hit in order to send out a transmission for assistance from the Jedi Order. The damaged warship itself was, at the moment, handling lifesupport and other such necessities just fine. But all engines and weapons on the massive starcruiser had been shut down by the computer, and the warship drifted helplessly amongst the rubble of the destroyed moon, unable to move with either impulse or hyperdrive.

During this long wait on repairs, the four men and Cyrinity had decided to amuse themselves with trying to come up with likely explanations to explain what exactly was going on aboard the Ecliptic Sun.

"So…" Darrik interrupted a long and almost insanely impossible scenario that Brenden had been weaving for the past ten minutes to try and explain what was happening. "What about the girl Amirrya? I haven't heard you mention her much. Has she awoken yet?"

"Not yet," Avvin assured him with a point of his thumb toward the back of the giant domed room. "We moved her in here shortly before the gas leakage. She has been in stasis for at least over a week, now, and we're still not sure why. I am reframing from trying to awaken her before we get back to the Jedi Temple on Coruscant because of the… darkness, that I sensed within her." He twitched his mouth and said, "It's a weird feeling I sense. She is very powerful in the light side of the force, but something dark is… shrouding or concealing these powers. I'm not really sure what it is, exactly." Avvin glanced Darrik's perplexed expression and added, "You may go and see her for yourself, if you wish."

Darrik nodded his head, and then turned away from them as Brenden began weaving another one of his crazy theories. Darrik strode casually toward the medical side of the domed bridge, where he could see medical personnel hustling about hurriedly, no doubt trying to deal with the casualties that they had encountered in the aftermath of the recent collision with the moon.

Darrik walked through a long row of bacta tanks as he neared the medical area and saw many of the Jedi Masters and Jedi Knights sitting next to cots that were laid out beyond the bacta tank hallway. The Jedi were usually sitting down next to an injured crewmember, their eyes closed and their hands across one of the crewmember's shoulders. Darrik assumed that they were using a kind of force healing on these crewmembers to ease their suffering. Kendal had taught him to do this himself, but he was not yet proficient enough in the art to safely chance trying to heal anyone.

As Darrik rounded the bacta tank hallway, he found himself facing a large bacta tank that was spread apart from the rest of the tanks. He slowly dodged around a few desks in his path and then came around to the other side of the bacta tank where he could clearly see a figure floating amidst the blue liquid. She had a slender form, and her dark brown, almost black hair, spread out away from her in a whoosh as she drifted through the bacta. The women looked barely older than Darrik, and she wore the customary white top and bottom that a female wore while submerged in a bacta tank. A cordless breathing mask was attached to her mouth, enabling her to breathe in the liquid. Her smooth skin was slightly pale, and her eyes were closed, making her look oddly peaceful. However, her legs, arms, parts of her face, and her stomach were all lacerated with shallow scars that the bacta was currently healing. Yet despite all these scars that she harbored, she still looked striking while floating amidst the blue liquid.

"Amirrya," Darrik whispered through hushed lips, keeping his eyes locked on her floating figure, his forehead pressed up against the transparisteel tank.

Then, abruptly, Darrik caught on to the strong aura in the force that radiated from the young women, despite her unconscious state. Like Avvin had said, he could feel her strength in the light side of the force. And yet, at the same time, she seemed to be concealed by a veil of darkness that was always surrounding her. Darrik could feel the different colors of her being, swirling together, and he could imagine bright shades of light clashing against a darker abyss.

As Darrik stood gazing at her, Amirrya's eyelids suddenly fluttered and Darrik pulled away from the glass at the unexpected movement. But that was all that happened, and her eyelids flashed back into their previous appearance a second later.

Darrik slowly backed away from the tank, wondering what had just happened.

Abruptly, a piercing alarm cut Darrik's thoughts in half and he flinched in surprise as his brain tried to piece everything back together again. Then, as his feet went into motion, he heard his Master's voice streak through his head. _That's an intruder alarm, Darrik. Get over here, now!_

Darrik swiftly turned on his heels and hurried back through the bacta tank rows towards Kendal. When he reached him, his master was gathered around Avvin, Brenden, and Cyrinity. Avvin was hurriedly tapping out something on a computer terminal located a few meters from the central computer that the droids were hooked up to.

"Someone has just entered the platform deck of the ship," Avvin said without turning his head away from the keys, his hands playing across the computer terminal rapidly. "That section has been completely sealed off by the computer since the gas leakage, and none of my men have been able to bypass the doors. But just now, a security team caught a glimpse of someone walking through a doorway to the platform deck, a door that should have been locked. They were unable to see exactly who it was before the door closed down in front of them, locking again. All they could say was that, whatever it was, it was dressed in a dark robe and was walking swiftly through the hallways. We've tried to use the computer's security systems to find out who was in the platform deck, but the systems are keeping us from reading anything inside, and all of the doors are still locked down. I've no idea how whoever this is was able to get into that section, but that probably means that they're the one's who are affecting the computer's programming. The platform deck is about ten minutes from here, and I've sent the nearest Jedi Master to get through that doorway by any means necessary and find whoever this intruder is."

"Sir!" Lieutenant Terrius barged into the conversation as he came up from beside the Jedi Grand Master, a comlink in his hand. "Sir, those two droid," he pointed behind him to Artoo and Threepio, "were able to bypass some kind of transcription code on the security systems of this ship, getting themselves access to the security cameras throughout all levels of the Ecliptic Sun. It will take a few minutes to reboot the systems, but once we've done that, all the cameras onboard should be operational and at your disposal."

Avvin raised his eyebrows at this news and the turned to Kendal. "So those droids of yours did come in handy. I guess that hanging around Luke Skywalker and Han Solo for all those years left an impression on them." He then turned back to the lieutenant, a slight frown coming over his face. "Lieutenant, that's good news; keep me updated."

The lieutenant acknowledged and walked away, but Avvin stood frowning after him. "But something doesn't feel right about this…" he muttered, almost silently.

Darrik raised an eyebrow at this remark and tried opening himself up to his own sensitivity in the force. Everything seemed to be just the same as it was a moment ago, but right before he drew out he caught the fleeting hint of something trying to conceal itself within the force. He tried to push out farther, but the attempt was useless and he came back to reality a few seconds later.

"Okay, I've gotten a visual on Master Tekal Murath, the Jedi Master who I sent to find the intruder," Avvin announced, his fingers racing across the terminal near the computer. "He's coming through a hallway near the platform deck, and he'll be there soon. The security cameras for the platform deck section itself are still offline, but they'll be on in a few minutes."

Avvin hit a button on the terminal, and the screen enlarged into a projection to fill up a small portion of the wall. Through it, they could all clearly see the form of the Jedi Master Tekal Murath walking through a plain white hallway, his unlit lightsaber in one hand and a comlink in the other.

"Master," Tekal said, speaking into the comlink, his austere voice echoing out into the domed room around them. "I sense something very… contained, within the force on the platform deck before me. I cannot focus in on whatever it is, due to the amount of interference I am sensing right now. But, what I can sense through this haze is something that seems to be hiding itself in the force, and quite successfully, too. I do not know if this is the intruder, or something else, but I am fairly sure that this contained presence is coming from within the platform deck."

"I know, I can feel it, too," Avvin said into a comlink resting on the terminal, his own eyes focused on the screen.

In the hologram, Tekal Murath nodded and brought the comlink back down to his side, his eyes focused with a mission. He could be seen walking determinedly down different hallways towards the platform deck as the security cameras kept switching viewpoints and perspectives. Tekal was a Zabrak, a humanoid species with a small crown of horns encircling their head. He was about fifty years old, but he was determined and steadfast. He was dressed in traditional Jedi robes, a light tan shirt inside a dark brown outer robe that swooped out behind him as he marched through the deserted hallways. He carried a single-bladed inactivated lightsaber hilt in his hand, and even in the security viewscreen one could see his knuckles whiten from the grip he held it in.

After a few minutes of walking, Tekal finally came to a doorway that read Platform Deck above it. He abruptly stopped and placed his hands firmly to his sides.

"This is the last camera we will be able to see you through until we get the others up and running," Avvin called into the comlink as Tekal paused before the steel door.

Darrik saw Tekal look up to the camera where they could all see him from. He stood there a second, and then grinned a sad smile as he turned back to the doorway. An instant later, Darrik felt a wave of understanding through the force that said '_I Understand… wish me luck._' It was tainted, however, by a sense of fear in the Jedi Master that he had not felt before.

"May the force be with you," Avvin muttered again, his voice distant. Darrik found his own emotions troubling him as well, as if the force were trying to tell him of something.

The loud hiss-crackle of a lightsaber brought Darrik's attention back to the viewscreen. They saw Tekal Murath standing before the door, his viridian green lightsaber held to his side, clashing with the low lighting of the hallway. Tekal then waved his hand up at the doorway and the door crunched slightly from the strain. Then the sides of it buckled, and the door flew out of its frame, the distant sound of it crashing into the other side of the wall audible through the comlink. Tekal then stepped slowly through the mangled edges of the doorway, and the viewscreen became empty.

It was at this moment that Darrik turned and was slightly startled to notice the other dozen or so Jedi that were aboard the Ecliptic Sun gathered around the viewscreen, too, watching both Avvin and the empty hallway where the security camera had last held Tekal's image.

_Well, so much for being constantly aware of your surroundings,_ Darrik chided himself with slight amusement. _I can't even sense when about a dozen of the strongest force-sensative people in the galaxy come up from behind you._

Then Darrik turned back to Avvin right as Tekal's voice began speaking over the comlink, still booming out into the domed room. "So far, everything looks to be deserted. There's nothing in these first few rooms, but I can still feel the contained presence somewhere on this deck, and… I think it's moving."

"Okay, we should have the cameras and sensors for the platform deck up any second, now," Avvin called back into the comlink.

"Okay, I'm… wait-,"

A force sensation of fear suddenly assaulted Darrik, and he jumped back from the intensity of the jolt. An instant later, he heard the brief shout of something over the comlink as it echoed out onto the bridge. Then the viewscreen abruptly transformed as the cameras came back online and a blurrier image of Tekal standing in a long hallway appeared, his green lightsaber held firmly to his chest, his face looking offscreen. His mouth moved and an eruption of static followed through the comlink.

"It's… not for… after all this… how did…," Darrik caught through the static before the Jedi Master suddenly stopped mid-sentence, his eyes wide in trepidation. The side of the screen where Tekal was facing suddenly became fuzzier, and only the vaguest of shapes became visible as Tekal's eyes widened even further.

On the opposite side of the viewscreen from Tekal stood a dark, blurry form in the static of the image that was holding itself like a humanoid. The distorted form began slowly stepping forward, and Tekal's lightsaber shot to a two-handed grip as he positioned his feet into a fighting stance. Tekal's lips moved again, but the static from the comlink was persistent and blocked any decipherable sounds from coming through.

"I can't feel him…" Kendal muttered, his own eyes glued to the viewscreen.

Darrik was vaguely aware of his master's statement, and only when he tried reaching out to Tekal himself did he sense the absence of a force presence where the Jedi Master should have been.

"Something's blocking him," Kendal continued. "Both his presence, and a clear picture from the camera… And that same thing is probably what was blocking this entire ship from us earlier."

It was right as Kendal finished his sentence that Tekal sprang up into a sprint towards the indistinguishable figure. Right before he reached the blurry form, the figure seemed to wave his hand at him, and Tekal was thrown backwards through the air to the far left of the viewscreen. Tekal flipped in midair, barely avoiding the low ceiling, and then landed on his feet again to face the figure. The figure hadn't even broken its stride during Tekal's assault, and he kept walking forward in slow, deliberate steps.

Tekal waited where he had landed at the far left of the viewscreen, his body low to the ground and his lightsaber held slightly to his side. His eyes were a mix of abhorrence and fear, and they darted around sporadically. The dark, distorted form stepped closer to him, and right before it was upon him Tekal sprang up from his crouched position in a whirl of motion. His green lightsaber was held high as he spun around in a seemingly impossible flurry towards the blurry form. The distorted figure didn't even break stride, but merely shifted its weight slightly. Then, right before Tekal's lightsaber would have hit the figure squarely in the chest, the entire camera screen erupted into static.

Darrik's eyes widened in amazement as the camera went down, and he could sense the Jedis' anxiety around him, closing in like a blanket. Then the static from both the viewscreen and the comlink abruptly ended and the image on the wall reappeared, in more clarity than it had been before. There was no sign of the intruder anywhere onscreen, and the only other thing in the deserted hallway was the form of Tekal lying limply on the floor. The Jedi Master's torso and legs were separated slightly by a black scar that traced across his abdomen. His face and eyes were frozen in a continuous star at the ceiling, and his lightsaber lay a few meters away against the wall, deactivated.

The reaction from the Jedi in the room was felt more than seen, and Darrik felt his own emotions of fear and anger almost take him before he was able to control them.

"Sir," Lieutenant Terrius called out as he approached Avvin from behind, his voice ragged and despondent as he starred at the viewscreen. "All cameras onboard are now operational. We should be able to spot any living presences on the Platform Deck."

Avvin barely nodded as his hands went back to the terminal and images began flashing onscreen of different rooms throughout the platform deck. About a minute of this continued, with dead silence lying across all of the Jedi, before Avvin said, "I'm not picking up any lifeforms on the platform deck. Whatever that … thing, was that we just saw, it's hiding within the force from our cameras." His voice was barely controlled despair as he talked. "That means that, whatever this thing is, it's definitely force sensitive." He turned and looked back at the viewscreen of Tekal, lying motionless on the floor, and then turned the projector off. "Jedi Masters and Knights, I want everyone near the south exit of this room, where the platform deck is the closest too. We'll need all the help we can get. Whatever this thing is, it's coming here. I know it…"

He turned back to Lieutenant Terrius, who had been hovering near the Jedi Grand Master ever since he had announced the ship's systems coming back online. "Lieutenant; issue a red alert for all crewmembers, and put them at military stations with their own personal weapons in hand. Move as many of the crewmen away from this section as you can, and keep trying to track whatever this thing is, though I doubt it will do any good."

"Yes, sir," the Lieutenant saluted, and then turned away to issue the command on an intercom.

"Kendal," Avvin whispered as he began walking behind the group of Jedi Masters and Knights that were heading towards the south exit of the bridge. "I'm sorry that you've been caught up in all of this. I have a feeling that there is going to be a fight here, and I do not wish to see you or your friends hurt. You may wish to send them out of here and back to your ship, but I request that you yourself stay here, to help deal with this… thing."

"Wherever my Master goes, I go," Darrik cut in before Kendal could respond. "I'm not going to go run away and leave him here."

"Um, yeah; me too," Brenden cut in, though with clearly less determination in his voice.

"I thought you might say that," Avvin said, his mouth twitching, "but if you do stay, keep in the back near the medical supplies, away from this part of the bridge, and try not to get involved in whatever is about to happen."

Darrik nodded and continued following the two Jedi Masters, with Brenden and Cyrinity trailing behind him. They finally reached the door and noticed it's placement along the wall. There was an inclined ramp leading up to the door to make it high off the ground. Railings on both sides lined this ramp, and lights blinked intermittently from behind it.

"Oh, Masters!" came the prissy voice of Threepio as the golden droid stumbled towards them, followed by Artoo. "Masters, Artoo and I were able to access the main security controls from this ship's computer. I hope this will assist you in any way possible. Also, Artoo was able to connect the transponder cables back to the computer so that we should be able to send a transmission to the Jedi Temple on Coruscant in order for them to send a rescue craft. I have already made the correct calculations for-"  
"That's nice, Threepio," Brenden said sarcastically to the droid, "but right now, we have bigger bantha to fry. There's fixing to be a fight here, so why don't you and Artoo go find someplace to hide while we deal with it?"

"Oh, my!" Threepio exclaimed as Brenden finished. "Well, given the current situation, that seems the most logical plan to execute." He turned to Artoo. "Come now, Artoo; we don't want to get caught up in another one of these Jedi fights."

The two droids were walking off toward the other side of the giant domed room when a crewmember came up behind Avvin with a comlink in his hand.

"Captain," the crewmember said hurriedly, handing Avvin the comlink. "We just received a call from the officer of a twenty-man group that was busy evacuating the area around the platform deck. The officer called in about seeing something in front of them, near the south entryway. As the officer was reporting in, he was suddenly interrupted by the sound of laserfire as he and his men apparently started firing on something. The firefight ended just a few seconds ago, and I haven't heard anything since."

Avvin nodded curtly and unclenched the comlink. "Officer, are you there?" he called loudly into the device.

Brief static followed, and then a muffled gasp sounded. "Captain," the voice chocked out desperately, the officers lungs straining from the words. "We've just been atta-" A loud snap cut him off and the comlink went silent again as the sound of something heavy hit the floor.

"Officer!" Avvin yelled into the comlink, his eyes growing wider.

No voices came, but the barely audible sound of one pair of footsteps stepping across the ground could be heard as they approached. The footsteps grew louder, and then began fading away as the person apparently walked past the comlink and continued on.

Avvin shut his eyes tightly and twitched his head to the right as he tossed the comlink to a nearby table. "Darrik, Brenden," he said quietly, "I want you two to find cover somewhere in here until the fighting has finished. Whatever this –thing– is that's coming, I don't want you two to be anywhere near it. Try to take cover behind the-"

Avvin cut off mid-sentence as his head bolted sideways and his eyes found the south doorway where the rest of the Jedi were gathered around. The other Jedis' eyes followed a moment later as they felt what he had through the force.

Darrik stood rooted to the ground, like being stuck in a dream, as he starred at the doorway in a newfound sense of horror. Waves of darkness began radiating from behind the door, and they washed over him in an entanglement of fear. The other Jedi in the room had similar expressions across their faces as they starred wearily at the door. The feeling of dark tension that had been surrounding everything since Darrik had boarded the Ecliptic Sun had suddenly centered itself to one point: just beyond that doorway.

"It's here," Avvin muttered through clenched teeth. He took a single step towards the ramp leading up to the door and drew the silver-handled lightsaber from within his dark robes. He gripped it firmly in his right hand and lowered it to his side, ready for whatever was approaching.

"Come on," Darrik whispered to Brenden as he dragged him away from the doorway. "We need to get behind cover, now."

"Yeah, definitely," Brenden replied as they both grouped together behind one of the Ecliptic Sun's massive control boards, not far at all from the south doorway. "What do you think it is?" Brenden asked as they crouched down below where someone would have sat, "do you think it's another… sith?"

Darrik looked away, towards the doorway, his eyes squinted. "We'll find out soon enough…"

It was then that Avvin ignited his lightsaber, and a deep golden blade sprang to life from the hilt. The other Jedi in the room followed suit, and different colored lightsabers sprang into existence throughout the room. Kendal, who was directly behind Avvin, ignited his lightsaber and a purple beam of light shot out as he twirled it into a two handed grip. Cyrinity, who was behind him, ignited her twin blue and green lightsabers which she held loftily in the famous style credited to the Jedi Knight Aayla Secura.

The massive durasteel door that everyone's attention had been focused on suddenly began to rattle. An instant later, the edges of the door bent away from the frame and crushed down upon themselves, resulting in a heap of gnarled durasteel that hovered in the center of the doorway. Suddenly, the ball of twisted metal shot out from the doorway and collided with the wall on the opposite side of the ramp, leaving a resonant crash to echo throughout the dome-topped bridge as it fell to the ground.


	5. Chapter V

Future's Sacrifice - V

The Jedi all stood their ground, deathly still, peering anxiously into the darkness of the doorway. Ever so slowly, a dark form began to materialize from the darkness within, and a hooded figure stepped quietly out of the shadows. The figure was tall, and its face was impossible to see from within the blackness of the cloak. The figure's hands rested calmly at its sides, and no outward intention of harm could be seen in its appearance.

But Darrik could feel the waves of malevolence emanating outward from the figure, and he could visibly see the other Jedi in the room flinch as the figure stepped into the low lighting of the room.

"Show yourself!" A Jedi Master on the ramp nearest the figure called out, his voice heavy with hostility. The Jedi was a green-skinned alien of which Darrik had never encountered before. He wore a grey robe over his shoulders, and in his hands was a green lightsaber, pointed straight toward the dark figure's throat from his position a few meters away.

The cloaked figure slowly turned its head as if to study him, and then laughed; a cold, heartless laugh. The sound of it made Darrik's skin prickle as he reflexively ducked down further under the desk.

"Fools," the figure stated calmly, his voice the icy coldness of space. "Will you never learn?" The figure then knocked his head backwards, and the black cloak fell dramatically to the floor beneath him. Muffled gasps followed as the other Jedi in the room gazed up at the figure, their amazement palpable. The figure beneath the cloak was young, looking to be only in his early thirties, but already his face was a shroud of pain and torment. He looked as dispassionate as a bounty hunter, and his brown eyes were feral as they gazed around the room at the other Jedi. His hair was black and came down to his neck, while his mouth was a curved sneer that showed the tips of his teeth behind them. He was dressed in black, with long sleeves and pants coming down to his feet. Diagonal streaks of jagged dark blue lines traced the front of his shirt, and they continued down to his waist where they blossomed outward. His hands were balled at his sides, and his once-pail skin had turned an unhealthy darker color, displaying the depth of the dark side that he had fallen into.

Darrik's eyes seemed to widen even further, if that were possible, as he recognized the figure before him. He had only seen pictures of him, and those years ago, but he could still readily identify the person standing before them all.

"Reszrinn…" Avvin stammered out through the hushed silence, his voice sounding like he didn't believe what he was saying.

"Very good, Jedi Grand Master Avvin Corrind," Darth Reszrinn announced acidly, dragging out the title as he turned his head to face the Jedi Master. "I was worried that you would have forgotten me after all this time."

"How... are you… not…" Kendal started, starring up at the figure, his hands shaking.

"Oh, yes; my old friend's padwan, Jedi Master Kendal Sundair," Reszrinn stated in an icy, mocking voice as he shifted his gaze to Kendal. "Unfortunately, you happened to be Aumbian's undoing, and ultimately that's what led to my disappearance. You see, in the Ravager Wars, I knew when Aumbian had been defeated. I was even hoping for it, since I would have had to betray him sooner or later once we had taken control of Coruscant." His sneer curved upward. "So when I did sense his death, I plunged my ship straight into the starcruisers above Korriban to make it look like I was trying to attack or flee. What they did not realize was that I was heading for Korriban's surface, to conceal my presence in its power, and effectively hide from the Jedi until I could come back and take Coruscant myself."

Reszrinn's face was cruel and passionless as he continued. "I didn't exactly make it down to Korriban's surface unscathed, though. I barely survived; having to jump from my vessel that was disintegrating in Korriban's atmosphere to the planet's ground. But in the end, I did survive, thanks to my power in the dark side of the force. After that, though, I could not openly face the Jedi until I had regained my strength, so I decided to go into hiding within the deepest tombs of Korriban.

"Amirrya, the girl I had captured for my own studies on her unique force powers, was onboard my ship when it crashed. She somehow survived the crash along with me, and that was a testament to her powers within the force. I sensed that she would be instrumental in my future rise to power, and so I decided to take her with me into the tombs. The tombs I fled into were closer to the core of Korriban than anything else, and a nexus of dark side energy had gathered within their walls. Numerous Sith holocrons were placed down there from the most ancient of Sith Lords, and I spent most of my time in the tombs studying them.

"During my studies, I healed from my injuries, and learned far more about the force that I had ever thought imaginable. Almost nine years I spent on Korriban, studying everything about the force that I could imagine. And yet despite so much dark-side energy there, the young Jedi padwan Amirrya still resisted the dark side's lure, and I had to keep her there as my prisoner. I was just finishing my studies and plotting my revenge against the Jedi Order when I had a vision of the 'original' Korriban that the one I was currently on had stemmed off of. Also, in one of the Sith holocroms on the teachings of Marka Ragnos, I had found the instruction for harvesting the power from the core of an entire world and transferring it into myself, though it had never been attempted before. After learning these two things, I soon left, along with Amirrya, and let the force guide me to this new 'Korriban' where I planned to take the world's power for myself.

"I met Vidaris on Mustafar during my trip, wandering the barren lava world after successfully having faked her death years before, and I decided to make her my apprentice, for my own needs. The three of us then traveled to this new Korriban, and I could feel the dark side swirling within its core once we reached it. After a few months of working and studying Marka Ragnos's holocron, I was able to connect the core of the planet to a cylinder of specialized metal that harnesses force powers into a single individual. That individual had to be of an affinity of the force that was the opposite from what I was trying to harness, so I naturally knew that I needed to use Amirrya so that the dark side energies of the planet would gather around her as I drained the core of its power.

"Amirrya had been a completely loyal Jedi to the Jedi Order, and I know not what my treatment has done to her, for she had gone into a stasis ever since we arrived on this 'original' Korriban as she tried to resist the dark side's temptations. Ironically, this is exactly what I required to make the energy from the core swell up around her, and so I was able to absorb the power from her into myself, and have thus become more powerful than any Sith being, past or present, could ever imagine." His lips curled even further, exposing a wolfish grin.

"Then the Jedi Order showed up with its assemblage of Jedi Masters and Knights. You appeared right after the final transfer of power had been made into me, and I was still weak from trying to successfully channel that power into myself. So I sent Vidaris down to deal with you as I tried to recover. I watched your duel, and my apprentice was doing very well for what she had been taught so far. But then, for a reason still not completely clear to me, the energy shields of the massive cylinder that Amirrya was being held in suddenly exploded outward, causing a shockwave to expand out in all directions. I am guessing that Amirrya had somehow sensed your fight with Vidaris, and she then used the remnants of her powers in the force to create a shockwave from the energy she was being held in to distract the Sith Lord. She apparently succeeded, since Vidaris was distracted by the shockwave, and that got her killed by one of the Jedi here." His eyes scanned the audience briefly, and then landed on Cyrinity, who twitched her lekku slightly under his gaze.

"But no matter; Vidaris was a means to an end, and I was only using her for my own personal gain since she lacked the skills to truly master the dark side power of the force the way that I had. But after all these transfers of energy that I had gone under, I had to focus the energy I had gained from the core into myself, merging it with my identity, in order to be able to use it properly, and this meant that I could not yet face you. So I decided to sneak aboard your ship after Vidaris had been killed, all the while hiding my force presence within myself so that none of you would ever sense it. After I left Korriban, the remains of the drained core were too unstable without the nexus of dark-side energies to hold the planet together, and the planet collapsed.

After that, I waited, for about a week as you traveled back to this galaxy, focusing my newfound power into myself. I began to start sabotaging your ship, gaining control of its computer, so that when we came back into realspace and I had focused my powers, I could finish the rest of the Jedi here off at my leisure without having to worry about the rest of the Jedi Order coming here. It was in the last few days of this journey, though, that I finally realized what the final step was to completing my ascendance to being the most powerful entity the universe has ever known. And it was onboard this ship all along. I needed to end the life of the one who I had used to harness my power from the core in order to fully and completely embrace the dark side's power." Reszrinn's voice was colder then the ice-planet Hoth as he spoke.

"I know that Amirrya is here, and I will find her, despite whatever efforts you Jedi Masters will undoubtedly throw at me. If I have learned anything from the Sith's teachings during my studies, it is that every Sith Lord has been too weak in the end to stop their own death. Something more powerful was always able to defeat them, despite their immense powers in the force or their unparalleled lightsaber skills. Weather it be a rogue Jedi, their own apprentices, or even time, each Sith Lord eventually fell. Even Darth Plagueis the Wise, Darth Sidious, and Darth Bane, three of the most powerful Sith Lord's in history, succumbed to one of these things. And so, after contemplating this fact, I have finally discovered my destiny. I am to become the most powerful being in existence, and no one here will stop me from achieving that goal."

"You're a monster!" the Jedi nearest Reszrinn shouted after the tirade ended. His green lightsaber was pointed directly at Reszrinn's chest.

"Am I?" Reszrinn asked coolly. He was suddenly lifted his left hand up above his head, and then his fingers clenched together. A howl of metal against metal screeched down from the roof of the bridge, and a plating of the roof suddenly pealed back from its surface. The massive sheet of durasteel then flew straight downwards, directly toward the green-skinned Jedi.

The Jedi Master's head shot up as the metal plating fell, and he frantically raised his own hand upward to catch the durasteel before it pummeled him into the ground. The durasteel sheet halted in midair, floating directly above him, and the Jedi Master then swung his arm to the right as if throwing a ball. The plate of durasteel impacted against the wall beside the ramp in a loud, resonant crash, and then it crumpled to the ground in a pile of twisted durasteel.

"Oh, good; I hoped that it wouldn't be that easy to kill a Jedi Master," Reszrinn stated calmly.

The green-skinned Jedi's face turned to disgust, and he then spun his lightsaber down low to his side in a two-handed grip just below his waist. He darted forward a second later, shouting, "now!" as he did so, and the rest of the Jedi in the room converged toward Reszrinn's lone figure.

Reszrinn stood immobile, sneering wildly the entire time the Jedi with the green lightsaber sprinted towards him. Only when the Jedi had almost sliced off his head did he move.

Reszrinn's arms raced up in a flurry of speed from his sides, and suddenly he held a slightly longer than usual black and silver lightsaber handle up to the incoming green blade of the Jedi Masters'. Then, a bright silver beam cut horizontally through the space above Reszrinn's head, and he held it firmly as the Jedi's green lightsaber clashed against it in a loud static of focused light energy.

The Jedi Master's eyes widened in surprise as he stood with his lightsaber held against the silver blade. Silver lightsaber crystals, the crystals that powered lightsabers and gave them their color, were rare, and they had not been seen in over a century. To see one now was almost as rare as seeing Reszrinn wielding it.

Reszrinn's sneer turned even more sinister as he whispered, "Surprise." Then, the other side of his lightsaber handle erupted into a dark crimson beam as he swiveled the hilt sideways. The Jedi Master didn't have a chance to defend himself against the blade as Reszrinn slashed down at him sideways, bringing the blade up in a twirl of motion as he cut through the Jedi's kneecaps and waist. The Jedi Master fell to the floor, dead, and his lightsaber rolled off of the ramp where it hit the ground with a loud echo.

Darrik's eyes were glued in horror to the Sith Lord as the other Jedi Masters and Jedi Knights leapt towards him, their minds growling with rage. Avvin was the first to reach Reszrinn, and he brought his golden-bladed lightsaber down hard toward the Sith Lord's chest. But Reszrinn's dual-bladed lightsaber parried the blow easily, and he then twirled the lightsaber about in a fashion that made Avvin retreat a few steps backwards as he struggled to block the crimson and silver blades. Then the other dozen Jedi in the room were upon the Sith Lord, and a furious clashing of lightsaber combat echoed throughout the bridge. Different colors danced furiously off the walls from the many lightsabers as the mass of Jedi gathered around Reszrinn, blocking him from Darrik's view.

Darrik pulled Brenden down below the control desk and whispered hurriedly, "Oh my bantha! We cannot let Reszrinn get to Amirrya; I can feel it in the force. We've got to get her out of here!"

"But look!" Brenden whispered back, poking his head up from behind the desk. "There are a dozen Jedi upon him… how is he even going to escape that alive!?"

"I… I don't know; but the force is telling me that something…" Darrik trailed off as his own head poked up from behind the desk. The sounds of combat were echoing shrilly across the room. All of a sudden, the cluster of Jedi that were attacking the Sith Lord on the ramp flew outward in what looked like a massive waterfall impacting against a rock. The Jedi were flung into nearby walls and tables with loud crashes, and they fell to the ground visibly dazed. In the center of where the massive force push had originated stood the lone figure of Darth Reszrinn, his hands held outward, his black and dark blue outfit flowing about him. Around him was the mangled metal surface of the ramp, looking like a meteorite had impacted against it.

Reszrinn's face still harbored that sly grin as his gaze traveled over the scattered Jedi around him. He then stepped forward from the ramp and leapt down in a graceful flip, landing on the floor at the base of the incline.

As Reszrinn landed, a female human Jedi that was closest to him charged forward determinedly. She wielded a cyan double-bladed lightsaber that was weaving left and right as she charged, and her eyes were intently focused on the Sith Lord. Reszrinn brought the silver end of his own lightsaber down to meet the Jedi's, and a vicious duel ensued between the two dual-bladed force-wielders while the other Jedi on the bridge that had been knocked against the wall raced towards them.

Reszrinn held his own lightsaber one-handed as the Jedi danced furiously around him, slashing her lightsaber radically this way and that in an effort to break through his defenses. The swiftness with which they both fought was blinding, and the cyan-silver-red overlapping colors of the lightsabers began to meld together from the extreme speeds.

It was then that Reszrinn took a two handed grip on his own lightsaber and took a few steps forward, driving the Jedi back toward the wall with intense and violent twirls of the twin blades. The Jedi's blonde hair whooshed up into her face as she desperately tried to parry each strike, and suddenly her back was against the wall. She frantically blocked another strike from the Sith Lord's ruby blade, and suddenly Reszrinn jumped into a backwards summersault and landed a powerful kick to her chest in doing so. She was slammed backwards into the wall with a dull thud, and the durasteel around her gave way from the force of the kick and enveloped her in a metal shroud.

Reszrinn landed from his backwards summersault and turned away from the Jedi had had just kicked, and then another Jedi was upon him. The Jedi was a younger humanoid with a pale blue color to his skin, clearly still a Jedi Knight, and he was slashing his green lightsaber in a sideways strike toward the Sith Lord's chest.

Reszrinn ducked low as the emerald blade passed over him, and then he brought his own lightsaber back at the Jedi's legs as he spun it around toward the Jedi Knight. The Jedi narrowly blocked the slash at his calves, but then he had to go on the defensive as Reszrinn brought the other side of his lightsaber into a one-handed twirl toward his face.  
In the midst of the twirl, as the Jedi was bringing his lightsaber arm forward to deflect the two blades, Reszrinn's left hand shot forward between the three lethal beams of light and caught the Jedi's throat in a vise. A sputtering choke emitted from the Jedi's lips as his emerald blade deactivated and fell to the floor, and then he was clawing at the Sith Lord's hands with his own, trying futilely to loosen the iron grip. Reszrinn twisted his lips up into a fiendish grin as he stared back at the Jedi, and then he snapped his wrist to the right in a single crisp motion, breaking the Jedi's neck in a sickening crunch.

Reszrinn tossed the body to the ground as another pair of Jedi flew at him from opposite sides. He cut his lightsaber up into a sharp pivot as he blocked their lightsabers at the same time, catching one on each of his blades. Then he went on the offensive again and began easily batting back their attacks as more Jedi swarmed up around him.

Darrik pulled Brenden back down behind the desk again and said, "Come on, we've got to get out of here!"

"And go where?!" Brenden asked, his voice rising hysterically as the sounds of lightsabers clashing together increased.

"To the medical part of this room, where Amirrya is. If he somehow gets past these Jedi, then we're going to have to be the last defense against him from getting to her."

"Be the last defense?! What are you going to try and do; fight him?!" Brenden asked frantically. "Do you see what he's doing out there?! He just killed two Jedi like they were puppets, and he's not even trying! How in the universe are you going to stand up to him!?"

"I… I don't know," Darrik said truthfully. "All I know is that we have to do something." Darrik glanced over the desk once more, then said, "Come on!"

Darrik sprinted toward the row of bacta tanks on the far side of the room, and made it there just a few seconds before Brenden. They both then hunkered down behind the nearest bacta tank and turned their heads to check their surroundings. The place was deserted, due to Avvin's orders to evacuate the bridge of all personnel, and everything looked to have been left in a hurry. Right now, the rest of the crewmembers were probably on one of the lower command decks, trying to read what the situation was up here.

Darrik and Brenden then turned their heads back to the massive lightsaber fight. Reszrinn was twisting and spiraling his lightsaber this way and that as he blocked multiple Jedi's lightsaber strikes, his mouth a continuous grin as he dueled. He was skillfully using the Jedis' own numbers to his advantage, directing them into each other's paths and veering them into the way of other attacks so that only a few Jedi could attack him at any one time. Off to the side of the Sith Lord lay another fallen Jedi, an arm severed at the shoulder and his head limp against the ground.

As Darrik watched the impetuous duel, he sensed a sudden force shout coming from Avvin. _Fall back! Regroup at the medical area, and do not let him get past you!_ The remaining Jedi responded to his call by slowly falling back towards the medical area, their lightsabers still playing frantically left and right as Reszrinn darted back and fourth between them.

"Com'n, we've got to go!" Darrik shouted to Brenden as he began racing down the row of bacta tanks. Brenden hesitated for just a second, and then stumbled after him, his head darting back every few seconds in a hope to catch another glimpse of the fighting.

About fifteen seconds later, the two men arrived at the end of the bacta tank hallway and gazed around them. Amirrya was still there, drifting amidst the blue bacta liquid, her head titled downward.

"Oh, Masters!" a familiar prissy voice suddenly called from behind them, and Darrik and Brenden turned around to meet the voice. Threepio came up from behind a medical table, followed by Artoo, and the two droids came swiftly towards them.

"Oh, Masters; I am so glad to see you! Artoo and I could hear the fighting from here, and we were scared that you might have been injured in some way. Luckily, though, it seems that my worries were ill-founded, since neither of you seem to be harboring any serious affliction. If I may suggest-"

"Look, Threepio," Brenden interrupted him, his tone that of a schoolteacher to a clueless child. "In a few seconds, there is probably going to be a fight right here, where we're standing, involving a Sith Lord and a bunch of Jedi. So I would suggest that-"

"A Sith Lord?! Oh, my! Whenever you force-wielders get involved with-"

"-that you try and keep out of the fight, since a droid can be a very handy force projectile in a fight like that. Also, we can't let this Sith Lord get to Amirrya, here," he pointed to the bacta tank. "Or else, basically, he's going to become some kind of super-powered killing machine."

"Oh, dear! That would not be good! Masters; what do you suggest Artoo and I do if he does get too close to Amirrya?"

Brenden rolled his eyes and said in a sarcastic voice, "Then I suggest that you grab a lightsaber and use your droid-enhanced lightsaber dueling skills to distract him while Artoo hits him from behind with his droid flamethrower." Brenden then turned away from Threepio and walked to the bacta tank where Amirrya was. He stopped beside the tank and stared up at her limp form.

"But-… But sir!" Threepio called after him, his metallic, prissy voice rising in volume. "I was never programmed with the correct simulations for one-on-one lightsaber combat, not to mention that I do not have the proper body frame design for such-"

"We need to get her out of here," Darrik interrupted him as he came up beside Brenden, both of them now looking up at Amirrya's figure.

"And how exactly are we supposed to do that?" Brenden retorted.

Darrik licked his lips, then said, "We could, maybe, try and wake her up…"

"I thought Avvin said that she has been asleep ever since she came aboard. How do you expect to awaken her?" Brenden's eyebrows slanted downward. "And, if what Reszrinn said was true, then she was being used as some kind of dark side channeling device that all the dark side energy of Korriban must have had to have passed through. Do you think she would just come out of something like that unscathed? Granted, I'm not a force-user like you, but from what I've heard that sounds pretty bad. How do you think she'd react if we suddenly woke her up? For all we know, she might try to kill us."

"I know, I know," Darrik assured him, frowning. "But, it's either that, or we wait until Reszrinn gets here and just let him kill her. And that is definitely not an option."


	6. Chapter VI

Future's Sacrifice - VI

As the last words left Darrik's mouth, Cyrinity came racing around the bacta tank hallway and stopped beside them, her breath coming in gasps. "The others are coming," she panted as she straightened up. "There are eight Jedi left, including Avvin, Kendal, and myself. We're hoping to regroup here so that we can try something different."

As if on cue, the other seven Jedi Masters came swiftly around from the bacta hallway, all their robes either tossed aside or torn off, and their faces sullen. A few of them had small cuts or scars across their bodies where Reszrinn's lightsaber had found its mark. Kendal was the last to come out from behind the bacta hallway, and when he did so he said, "Reszrinn's not far behind us, so we won't have much time to do this."

"Do what?" Darrik asked.

"I," Avvin stated, bringing Darrik's attention to him, "am going to try and form a battle meditation to enhance the reflexes and force powers of the other Jedi. We don't have long, though, so I need to start now. While I'm in the meditation, I won't have enough attention to sense everything around me, so I will need you, Darrik, and you, Brenden, to make sure that I am not attacked during my battle meditation. But other than that and guarding Amirrya, stay out of the fight. I don't want either of you dying here."

Darrik nodded his head, not trusting his mouth to speak truthfully. He then watched the Jedi Grand Master sit down into a cross-legged position in front of Amirrya's bacta tank and close his eyes. A few seconds later, a feeling resembling a force adrenaline rush washed over Darrik. He felt renewed and calm, and he was completely ready for whatever might be thrown at him next.

Darrik looked around and saw the other Jedi in the room letting out similar sighs of relief. They apparently felt the same sensation, and it must have been even more pleasing after having intensely fought for the last few minutes.

"Okay, let's get this straight," Kendal said, addressing the remaining Jedi. "When Reszrinn gets here, we have to overwhelm him as a whole. We cannot let him separate us so that he can pick us off at his leisure. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Master," the Masters responded in unison, the commanding rank apparently falling to Kendal while Avvin battle-meditated.

"Good…" Kendal muttered back, his eyes focusing on the end of the bacta hallway. "Let's hope it's enough…"

As if on cue, soft footsteps could be heard as they approached through the long rows of bacta tanks, echoing off of the dome-topped bridge like a pulse. Then, a few meters away, the figure of Darth Reszrinn stepped out from behind the last bacta tank.

"I was wondering where the rest of you had gone," Reszrinn said in the dark, detached voice of his. His lightsaber was ignited, and he flicked the red and silver blades left and right as he spoke.

"Now!" Kendal shouted, and in that instant the seven Jedi pounced upon the Sith Lord. Reszrinn was ready, however, and as soon as the first lightsaber reached him he swiveled his own silver blade to bat it aside harmlessly.

Then the other Jedis' lightsabers were upon him, and the Sith Lord took a few steps back as he twirled his own lightsaber into a two-handed grip and began spinning it back and fourth, blocking every incoming blade in a dazzling display of skill and concentration. Despite this display of skill, the Jedi were still keeping the Sith Lord on the defensive, and making him retreat, which had been impossible before. Avvin's battle meditation was apparently helping.

This ebullient exchange of blows continued for a few more seconds, and then, right as the seven Jedi seemed about to overwhelm the Sith Lord, Reszrinn jumped straight up, the black and dark blue cloth of his outfit fluttering up into the air. He spun around in midair as he jumped, so that he would be facing down upon the Jedi, and then he outstretched his hands towards them.

A massive force energy wave suddenly erupted from the Sith Lord's outstretched hands, and the wave came crashing down upon the Jedi. This sudden force pressure from above dropped all the Jedi harshly to their knees or stomach, as if they had been riveted to the ground. Then Reszrinn came crashing down upon them, his lightsaber twirling furiously as he spun the two blades toward the downed Jedi.

Cyrinity was on her stomach as the Sith Lord came down, and out of the corner of her eyes she saw the dual colors of red and silver swinging towards her. Cyrinity flipped around onto her back as quickly as possible, and then thrust her arms outward. Her blue and green lightsabers shot forth from the ground and to her hands as she used the force to call them, and then she ignited both blades just as Reszrinn's silver and red blades came crashing down upon her.

A loud crackle sounded as the Sith Lord landed and both of his blades impacted against hers'. The two stood there for a second at a stalemate, lightsabers locked, neither willing to give any leeway. Then, with a mighty push, Reszrinn angled the dark red end of his lightsaber diagonally and shoved it down towards Cyrinity's neck. Cyrinity tilted her head back desperately, her muscles quivering from the strength which she held her lightsabers in front of her. The red beam of light was only centimeters away from decapitating her, and the heat from the blade was palpable against her throat. It was at that moment that Reszrinn, with a snarl, drew away from her in order to counter an attack by one of the Jedi behind him that had recovered from the force push.

Reszrinn slashed backwards at the Jedi, parrying the blow, and then leapt into a backwards somersault. He landed a few meters away from the cluster of Jedi and starred down at them in distaste, his lips still curved.

"I'm actually impressed," he said slowly, his grin carved into his face. "In all honesty, I was expecting you all to be dead by now."

"We like to disprove people," Kendal said in a conflictingly serious tone, his eyes glowering at Reszrinn's figure. "It's one of the perks of being a Jedi Master…"

"Oh, is it now?" Reszrinn stated matter-of-factly, and yet still harboring that icy coldness within his tone. "Well, let's see how you handle this."

In one deft motion, Reszrinn raised his left hand and a beam of bluish lightning shot forth from his fingertips. Kendal was nearest Reszrinn, and he reacted out of instinct as he jerked his lightsaber's violet beam up in front of his face to catch the staticky lightning. The dark blue, almost black lightning struck the blade like a panicked rancor, and Kendal held his lightsaber firmly in a two-handed grip as the lightning was absorbed by the purple blade and made erratic discharges into the surrounding air.

"Get him, now, while he's distracted!" Kendal shouted to the other Jedi above the uproar of the crackling lightning. The other Jedi acknowledged his command by racing around the sides of where he stood and then charging toward the Sith Lord.

Reszrinn's jaw slanted into a look of impatience as the Jedi came at him. He then raised the hand that he was shooting the lightning from higher and outstretched his fingers. The dark bluish lightning suddenly arched from Kendal lightsaber toward the other six Jedi in front of him. The other Jedi barely had the milliseconds it took to spin their lightsabers around and catch the lightning before the dark electricity hit their blades and riveted their feet to the ground.

Reszrinn laughed, a cold, merciless laugh, as he watched the seven Jedi in front of him trying desperately to repel the insistent lightning with their lightsaber blades. The Sith Lord then raised his hand even higher, and the force lightning turned into a storm of electricity as it bombarded each Jedi's lightsaber. The electricity crackled from one blade to the next, and it branched out into smaller forks around the remaining Jedi.

Cyrinity's face was sweating as she concentrated upon keeping the lethal lightning at bay with her twin lightsabers. The dark blue bolts of electricity crackled between her two blades as she held them outward, and even with Avvin's battle meditation, she was struggling to hold the lightning back.

Then, Reszrinn, while still shooting the storm of force lightning from his fingertips, took his other hand and waved it downward in an exaggerated motion. With a loud moan, a section of one of the crosswalks that were located just above the seven Jedi suddenly cracked away from its frame and came plunging down towards them.

One of the Jedi in the group, the human female that wielded the double-bladed cyan lightsaber, diverted her attention from the lightning and held her one free hand up in an attempt to catch the plummeting walkway. With a screech, the twisted durasteel walkway halted right above the seven Jedi, floating precariously in midair, loose ruble falling around it.

After watching this, Reszrinn lifted his free hand back up and made a motion as if he was pushing something forward. A giant force push suddenly took hold of the seven Jedi and flung them through the air toward the other side of the bridge. Reszrinn kept his left hand raised the entire time, and the lightning trailed from his fingertips after the Jedi, electrocuting them as they hurtled through the air, unable to block it. Finally, the storm of lightning ended when the seven Jedi crashed into the wall with a loud thump, causing indentions throughout the durasteel's structure.

Kendal was the first to open his eyes after the enormous force push. He was against the bent frame of a wall, back-first, leaning forward, with electricity still crackling over his body in sporadic fizzles. His muscles felt numb and unresponsive, and as he tried to stand the lightning took its effect. He fell back down onto all fours, and then he felt Avvin's battle meditation in the back of his mind, urging him onward. He shakily raised his head again and looked up.

The other Jedi were scattered widely around him, in a kind of arc of where they had landed after being hit by the force push. They looked much like he himself did, shaken and badly disoriented by the lightning, but alive. Then, out of the corner of his eyes, Kendal spotted Reszrinn, slowly marching towards one of the Jedi on the farthest edge of the scattered arc.

Reszrinn slowly strode up to the Jedi, his lightsaber twirling back and fourth in one hand. The Jedi Master, a humanoid alien with slightly droopy ears, tried desperately to overcame the lingering effects of electricity streaking through him as he stood up to meet the Sith Lord. The Jedi held a blue lightsaber in one hand, and a light violet lightsaber in the other. He shakily hunched down into a fighting stance as the Sith Lord neared him, battling back his exhaustion.

Reszrinn's grin never faltered as the Sith Lord brought his lightsaber around his body in a dramatic fashion towards the Jedi. The Jedi Master quickly dodged the first blade, apparently having recovered well enough thanks to Avvin's battle meditation, and skillfully blocked the other end of the lightsaber with his own violet blade. Then Reszrinn spun his double-bladed lightsaber around the other side of him, and, in mid-spin, suddenly changed tactics and brought the lightsaber straight down toward the Jedi Master's chest.

The Master tried desperately to dodge the sudden change in pattern, jinking to the right, but the silver end of Reszrinn's lightsaber still clipped his left shoulder, slicing though to the bone. The Jedi let out a low growl of pain as he dropped the lightsaber in his left hand and tried to balance himself again. But even as he did so, Reszrinn raised his hand and pulled him up off of the ground and into a force choke.

The Jedi grasped his throat, a strangled cry escaping his lips as his feet dangled out beneath him. A second passed, and then, after realizing that this was futile, he swung his remaining lightsaber out in a desperate attempt to strike the Sith Lord. But even as he swung, Reszrinn spun his own blades crossways and cut the Jedi's right hand off at the wrist, sending both the cauterized hand and lightsaber to the ground.

Reszrinn looked back up at the Jedi, and saw the fear and in his eyes as he gasped for breath. The Sith Lord snickered, and then the muscles in his hand that he was holding the Jedi in a force choke with tensed, and a bluish lightning erupted from his fingertips. The Jedi convulsed in a jerked motion as the lightning hit him, the electricity illuminating his bones as it snaked across his body. Reszrinn then opened his hand palm-outward, and the lightning-illuminated Jedi flew backwards, impaling against the wall a few meters away. A small smoke stream rose up from the twisted metal crater in the wall as lightning danced around the crater's edges.

Reszrinn turned his head away from the Jedi's body and spun around to face the remaining Jedi in the room. They were all spread around him, having gotten to the Sith Lord just seconds before, when it was too late to do anything about their fellow Jedi's fate, and their lightsabers were held in white-knuckled grips as they glared at Reszrinn. Reszrinn merely glared back at them, his face was now less of a sneer and more of a hardened, piercing stare as he moved his eyes across theirs.

Suddenly, without a word, Reszrinn's lightsaber shot forth from his hands and spiraled straight toward the nearest Jedi on the far left of him. The Jedi wasn't expecting this at all, and she dropped down to her side as the silver end of the dual-bladed lightsaber sailed over her face. Cyrinity was right behind her, and she jerked her blue and green lightsabers up just in time to intercept the red blade. But even as she blocked the lethal beam of light, Reszrinn's lightsaber spun around in a different direction, of its own accord, and started slashing out furiously toward the other Jedi.

Reszrinn stood away from the fight with his arms crossed, a smug smile across his face, watching intently as his own lightsaber telekinetically danced back and forth between the Jedis' own blades.

"It's him!" Kendal roared through the almost deafening clash of lightsaber combat. "He's the one controlling this thing! Get him in order to stop his control!"

At this statement, one of the Jedi Masters raced out from beneath the fight and shot straight towards the Sith Lord. The Jedi was a Caamasi, a furred humanoid, and he wielded a single blue-bladed lightsaber at his side as he charged toward Reszrinn. The Sith Lord didn't even move as he approached, and the Jedi Master skillfully twisted his lightsaber around from his side and curved it down toward Reszrinn's chest as he sailed to meet the Sith Lord's unmoving figure.

Just as the blue blade reached him, Reszrinn uncrossed his arms and dodged swiftly to the left, the azure blade coming down where he had been just milliseconds before. In the middle of this dodge, Reszrinn grabbed the Jedi's lightsaber hand and snapped it back around toward the Jedi.

The Jedi's wrist cracked under the pressure, and a muffled yell escaped the Caamasi's lips as he stretched his hand out in attempt to force push Reszrinn away from him. But even as the force push pushed outward, Reszrinn's hand shot straight up and he channeled the force of the blast into his hand, effectively deflecting the force push into the crosswalks above.

Reszrinn then lowered his hand and used the force to full the Jedi's lightsaber from his limp hand to his own. The blue and silver handle sailed into the Sith Lord's hand, and he grasped it as he finally released his hold on the Jedi's wrist. The Caamasi stumbled backwards a few steps, and then Reszrinn swung the Jedi's own blue blade around in one smooth motion toward his neck.

The Jedi's head and body fell to the floor separate of each other, and Reszrinn tossed the blue lightsaber back to the dead Master's side before turning to face the remaining Jedi. He held his right hand up high above his head, and his dual-bladed lightsaber came spinning back from the midst of the fight and into his grip.

The other Jedi spun around to face him as the lightsaber left their presence, their faces red and panting. Their expressions turned to looks of disgust as they saw the downed Jedi beside the Sith Lord. Reszrinn slowly shut his own lightsaber off and lowered it back down to his side. He then raised his head to look the five remaining Jedi in the eye.

"The Jedi have not learned anything since I have left, have they?" Reszrinn stated calmly, his own voice showing only the slightest hint of exhaustion. "You haven't a clue about the magnitude of the power of the force. You know of it, you have seen it proven to you, and yet you refuse to fully understand it because you are afraid that it will lead you to the 'dark side', and you think that this dark side will corrupt you with its visions of power. The Jedi have always believed this. So instead of harnessing all aspects of the force's powers and combining them into one, you are only supposed to use one part of the force; the 'good' side of it, or the light side..." The Sith Lord shook his head slowly. "That is your philosophy, and that shall be your failure."

"Oh, I like that quote," Kendal spat out sarcastically through his anger, his face wrathful. He was nursing a shallow cut across his right shoulder where Reszrinn's lightsaber had singed him, and he held the deep purple beam of his blade pointed down. "'That is you philosophy, and that shall be your failure.' Perfect quote, there. It has a nice ring to it. Maybe we'll put it in the Jedi Archives when this is all said and done." Kendal then morphed his face into a look of finality, and said in a more serious tone, "However, Reszrinn, we, the Jedi, are the peacekeepers of this galaxy. No matter what you say or do, we will never willingly step aside and let you take that peace from us."

"Ha!" Reszrinn smirked through his edged teeth. "You claim yourselves to be peacekeepers, and yet look! All across history, almost all of the great wars have transpired due to the Jedi. The Hundred-Year Darkness, the Great Hyperspace War, the Jedi Civil War, the Clone Wars, the Rebellion, the Ravager Wars; almost everything excluding the Yuuzhan Vong War have happened because the Jedi were attempting to 'save' the galaxy by trying to fight the Sith... The Jedi's definition of a 'Sith Lord' is anything that stands between them, and galactic domination."

"Well, maybe if the sith weren't trying to kill us the entire time, we could have come to more peaceful solutions," Kendal retorted fiercely. "Besides, unlike the Sith, who use deception and raw power to achieve their own needs, the Jedi try and maintain peace between people and governments. We do not crave power, and we are held more strongly together because of that than any Sith Empire has been."

Reszrinn smirked again, his lightsaber twirling unconsciously through his fingers. Then, with a note of definiteness in his voice, he stated, "It is like I said, then… That is your philosophy, and that shall be your failure."

Suddenly, the Sith Lord was darting toward the five remaining Jedi in a low run, his lightsaber still unlit and angled diagonally at his side. He stopped just short of the Jedi's reach, and then used the force to pounce into a spin toward Kendal. Reszrinn ignited only the silver end of his lightsaber right as he brought it down upon Kendal's purple blade, and the two blades clashed in a static of energy. Reszrinn then spun the single blade around the other side of him in a flurry and caught Kendal completely off guard, since he was expecting a double-bladed lightsaber style of attack.

Kendal didn't have enough time to adjust his own style, and he retreated a few steps back as he realized his disadvantage. The other four Jedi then swarmed in on the Sith Lord from around his sides, and the clashing of lightsaber blades became an almost deafening roar.

Reszrinn was moving even faster than normal, since he was trying to block all of the Jedi's attacks with a single blade, and his hands were a blur as they arced in and out of complex thrusts and spins. Suddenly, the other side of Reszrinn's lightsaber sprang back into life, and he reverted back into his double-bladed style as he spun the red blade up toward a female Jedi while blocking another attack from behind him with the silver end.

The female Jedi that Reszrinn was swinging towards was a Togruta, a humanoid with bright red and white patterns decorating her face and lekku, and she wielded an amber-colored lightsaber that she brought up to counter the red blade in a sparkle of static discharge.

As soon as the blades met, Reszrinn pulled back from the attack and force-leapt into a summersault over the Togruta. He landed facing away from her, and then forcefully swung his double-bladed lightsaber around in a complete arc, spinning around on his feet as he did so.

The Jedi Master barely had enough time to bring her own amber lightsaber up to block Reszrinn's blade, but as soon as the two blades contacted, Reszrinn's silver beam suddenly dissolved and the Sith Lord continued the momentum of his swing with the red blade of his lightsaber as he angled it down toward the Togruta's abdomen.

The Jedi Master was caught completely off-guard at this tactic, and the ruby blade of Reszrinn's lightsaber sliced through her in one, clean cut. She fell to the ground beside Reszrinn, the look of surprise etched onto her face.

Reszrinn smiled cruelly, and then reignited the silver end of his lightsaber and twirled it up into a spin, blocking the Jedis' new barrage of strikes. Three strikes later, the Sith Lord was jumping backwards, deactivating his lightsaber in midair and pivoting around to face the Jedi again. His left hand shot down to his side, palm facing up, and a blue mist began to form within his curled fingers.

The four Jedi that were charging toward him abruptly stopped as they saw this, unsure about what the Sith Lord was about to do.

"You don't know anything about the force," Reszrinn shouted at the Jedi, his hand beginning to tremble. He slowly turned his gaze down to the orb of blue mist, and sneered.

A second later, in a growl of rage, Reszrinn unclenched his fingers and the blue swirl of force energy within his hand erupted into an explosion. Cyrinity's eyes widened as she saw the blue wave of energy coming towards her, and before she even knew it she was flipping around in midair. A moment later her, back crashed into the durasteel wall behind her, and she fell down to the ground in a clumsy jumble.

She shook her head twice, trying to clear her vision, her lekku flopping to either side as she did so. As her vision came slowly back into focus, she saw a dark blur land just a few meters away from her. The distinctive snap-hiss of two lightsaber being ignited followed.

Cyrinity was up in an instant as the Sith Lord charged toward her, his double-bladed lightsaber spiraling around in his hands. All she could see was a vague pattern of silver and red as the two blades spun around in Reszrinn's hands, and then the ruby blade came crashing down at her from above. Cyrinity crossed her own lightsabers up high in order to catch the red blade between her blue and green ones, and Reszrinn's lightsaber impacted against them in a venomous hiss.

Cyrinity thought she had him trapped, with his lightsaber lodged between both of hers'. But even as the thought entered her mind, the red beam suddenly disappeared from existence and the Sith Lord spun around and thrust the silver end of his lightsaber toward Cyrinity's exposed stomach.

Cyrinity watched this all happening in slow motion as the bright silver beam approached her abdomen. She wanted to yell and scream, but it was as if she was within a dream and she could not move her muscles. She saw her blue and green lightsabers, drifting down ever-so-slowly to try and block the silver beam as it neared her. But there was no way they could make it there in time, and she knew right then she was going to die.

Then, a dark violet glow erupted in her peripheral vision. She twisted her head to the side, so very slowly, and saw Kendal raising his own lightsaber up toward the silver beam, his face determined. Reszrinn's blade was almost touching her now, and then the purple beam of light contacted with the silver one.

A distorted fizzle of lightsaber blades clashing together sounded within Cyrinity's slow-motion senses, and then Kendal was raising his purple lightsaber upward. But Reszrinn's lightsaber was already touching her, and as Kendal raised his own lightsaber, the silver blade sliced a cut from the side of her abdomen all the way up to her shoulder.

Cyrinity fell to the floor, coming out of her slow-motion sense, and rolled painfully to the side to avoid any upcoming attacks. But Reszrinn was distracted by Kendal, now, and the Sith Lord was holding his silver blade against Kendal's deep violet lightsaber in a struggle for dominance. The two men glared at each other for a second, and then Reszrinn disengaged as the other two Jedi Masters came up behind Kendal.

Cyrinity painfully stumbled up from the floor in the brief lull in the fighting. Her face was contorted with pain, and her left arm was slightly hunched over from where Reszrinn's lightsaber had found its mark. But despite the obvious pain, she was still standing, facing the Sith Lord, the desire to fight in her eyes.

"Cyrinity," Kendal panted through his bleeding lips, not taking his attention off of the Sith Lord. "Get out of here… You're no match for him now, and we don't need you to die."

"Always the hero…" Reszrinn provoked as he stood glaring at Kendal, his breathing barely ragged. He spotted Cyrinity hesitate at Kendal's command, and then said, "Here, let me make the decision for you."

He then threw his left hand upward, toward Cyrinity, and a giant force push originated from his palm. Cyrinity flew up into the air and across the room, out if sight.


	7. Chapter VII

Future's Sacrifice – VII

Darrik's eyes caught the slender form of Cyrinity zooming across the room a split second before she hit the floor. She collided with a medical table just a few feet from where Avvin sat cross-legged in his battle meditation, and this dislodged a viewscreen on the table and sent it tumbling to the ground.

Brenden came sprinting towards her and kneeled over her motionless figure, his face the portrait of fear. Darrik came up fearfully beside him, watching him hurriedly checking her neck and wrist for a pulse.

"Oh, my!" Threepio was the first to speak as he came waddling towards Cyrinity and the two men, with Artoo close behind him.

Brenden let out a sign of relief and choked out, "She's alive, she has a pulse…" He then looked down at her face and whispered, "Cyrinity, can you hear me? Are you alright?"

A few moments scathed by in silence, and then Cyrinity blinked her eyes open.

"I wouldn't exactly call this 'alright'," she mumbled through her bleeding lips, her mouth crooked. She tried to raise her arms to get up, but then thought better of it and slowly lowered them back down to her sides, wincing as the scar from her shoulders expanded from the movement.

Brenden grimaced at her effort, and then carefully lifted her head and placed part of a chair comforter under her lekku. "Try not to move too much," he said uneasily.

"I'll keep that in mind," she replied weakly, her voice serrated.

"And… we'll get you out of here, somehow," Brenden promised. "Just… just try to hold on for right now."

Cyrinity smirked back at him with a slight chuckle, her eyes meeting his.  
The crackle of lightsabers colliding together suddenly drove the two men and Cyrinity's attention to the long row of bacta tanks.

Just entering the bacta tank row, Darth Reszrinn could be seen dueling ferociously against the three remaining Jedi Masters. The three Masters were being steadily driven back as they fought against him, despite Avvin's battle-meditation. Even Kendal was having a hard time countering Reszrinn's merciless thrusts and lunges as the Sith Lord lashed out murderously towards them. The Sith Lord's lightsaber style was shifting between double-bladed and single-bladed frequently, now, and it seemed the more he fought the faster he became.

A few more long moments dragged by in the vehement duel, and then Reszrinn swiftly backed away from the Jedi Masters. He brought his lightsaber down to his side and deactivated it.

"Enough of this," he hissed in an almost whisper, his voice rabid.

Then, with an upward wave of his hands, the three Jedi Masters were suddenly lifted into the air. They hung there, suspended, arms and feet flailing out as they struggled against the Sith Lord's merciless grip.

Reszrinn let his lips curl up into a sneer once more, and then he clenched down on both of his opened hands. The moment he did this, the three Jedi Masters let out a scream of what could only be called agony. The Jedi's bodies writhed as the Sith Lord force crushed their figures, literally imploding the Jedis' bodies into themselves. The Jedi on the far right of Reszrinn let out a strangled gasp after a few seconds, and then crumpled under the weight of the Sith Lord's force crush.

Reszrinn let out an icy laugh as the crushed Jedi collapsed to the floor, dead. He then turned to the two remaining Jedi Masters. "And to think that you actually thought you could kill me. The force is what I command, and with it I am invincible. I would have thought that at least you, Master Sundair, would have learned that by now. But it doesn't really matter that you do or don't, because the outcome will be the same… I will win."

The two suspended figures glowered back at the Sith Lord with an intensity that could melt carbonite, their bodies still writhing back and forth from the pain of the force crush.

Then, with a sneer, Reszrinn pulled one of his hands back and held it beside him. An electric crackle of bluish black lightning began to form within his hand, and it began to expand. Reszrinn held his sneer of contempt with satisfaction as the sphere of lightning formed, and his eyes only seemed to become more villainous as the swirling vortex began crackling outward around his hand in an uncontrolled manner.

Then he tightly closed the hand, with the lightning still crackling out between his fingers, and he dropped the two remaining Jedi from their force crush.

Kendal dropped to the floor in a daze, along with the other female Jedi beside him who wielded the cyan double-bladed lightsaber, and they both began gasping back air into their nearly crushed lungs. They both laid there with their backs to the ground for a few seconds, panting, and then Kendal managed to turns his head up towards Reszrinn.

The Dark Lord of the Sith smiled, the kind, polite smile of someone about to kill you, and then opened his hand. The bluish, black electricity held within erupted from his hand and, as it was doing this, Reszrinn pushed his other hand forward, palm outward, and created a force push against the expanding lightning.

The resulting blast was an explosion.

The force push, crackling with lightning along its borders, slammed outward, away from the Sith Lord in all directions. Kendal and the other female Jedi Master were instantly flipped up into the air and hurled backwards as the lightning fueled force push collided with their figures. The two Jedi were thrown down the entire length of the bacta tank hallway, and they hit the thick durasteel wall near Cyrinity, Darrik and Brenden with a resonant thud as the twisted metal formed a crater against their forms.

Each row of bacta tanks that the two Jedi had been flung down shattered as the electrified force energy wave passed over them, and this sent a flood of blue bacta liquid expanding across the entire flooring of the bridge. Computer terminals and medical tables went flying as the wave passed over them, and the entirety of the bridge erupted into chaos as the electricity crackled across the walls and zapped everything as the wave progressed onward.

The electrified force energy wave even hit Darrik, Brenden, and Cyrinity, sending the three of them whirling through the air for a short distance before they collided with the wall. Avvin, who was still battle-meditating, abruptly lost his concentration and came back to reality as the force energy wave hit him. He was lifted up from his cross-legged position, and then slammed into the wall behind him with in a loud thud that resonated across the durasteel. Likewise, the bacta tank that Amirrya was being held in shattered as the wave hit it, and her limp form flew out from within the fractured tank to impact against the wall a few meters away, the oxygen mask tearing away from her face.

Then, when the electrified energy wave reached the end of the room, it buckled the walls outward slightly and then fizzled out into nonexistence.

* * *

Darrik was the first to open his eyes after the energy blast, and he found himself lying head-down amidst the bluish bacta liquid. The lights above him were dim and flickering constantly, and in some parts of the room they were nonexistent.

Darrik dragged his head to his side and quickly spat out the sickly-sweet tasting bacta that had flooded the ground. He found himself starring at Amirrya's limp form just a few meters away, with Cyrinity and Brenden just behind her. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the two perforations in the durasteel wall that marked where Kendal and the other Jedi had collided against it.

Slowly, ever so slowly, Darrik lifted himself up off of his stomach and stumbled up into a standing position. Around him was the decimated scene of the bridge, with traces of lightning still crackling over things such as shattered bacta tanks and computer terminals. Some of the crosswalks that crisscrossed above him had fallen to the floor, and others were precariously hanging on by just a few rivets, their frames twisting back and forth above him.

Darrik quickly stumbled through the bacta towards Cyrinity and Brenden, his legs wobbly due to the lingering effects of the lightning.

"Brenden, Cyrinity!" he shouted as he came next to their figures, his eyes darting back and forth between them. Cyrinity stirred slightly, and then opened one eye. She was lying in the pool of bacta on her side, with one arm scrunched up under her head and the other caressing the vertical lightsaber wound along her torso.

"That… did not feel good," she muttered, her face streaked with pain.

Brenden then moved next to her, and he slowly stumbled up out of the bacta, dripping the blue liquid into the shallow pool at his feet. He shook his head from side to side to get the liquid out of his hair, and then bent down next to Cyrinity. "Hey, are you alright?" he asked worriedly as he noticed her pained face.

"Again, not what you would call 'alright' at the moment."

A splash of water sounded behind the three of them, and they all turned their gaze towards the sound. Avvin Corrind strode determinedly through the bacta that smothered the ground, his tight brown leather-like shirt drenched in the sickly-sweet blue fluid. His face was resolute and purposeful as he came up to them, and his eyes took in the whole scene in a single sweep.

"Cyrinity, who's left?" he asked in an almost hoarse voice, his tone somber. "I sensed some of the Master's… fates, but it was unclear as to exactly what happened."

Cyrinity carefully picked herself off the ground and, with the help of Brenden, positioned herself so that she was sitting down in the bacta with her arms spread out supporting her. She then tilted her head up to look the Grand Jedi Master in the eyes and said sadly, "Master Kendal Sundair, Master Salina Kelrune, and myself were the only ones still alive before this explosion." She turned her head around and spotted the perforations in the durasteel wall. "But I'm not sure if-"

She was cut off as a chunk of durasteel fell out of the farther of the two perforations, and then Kendal emerged from the twisted metal crater. His tan shirt was tattered from the long duel with Reszrinn, and small scars traced across it where the Sith Lord's lightsaber had come too close. Kendal jumped down the two meters to the ground, but then stumbled as he landed in the bacta and an arc of lightning crackled over his right leg.

Avvin and Darrik raced towards him, and when Kendal regained his footing they were both by his side.

"Here," Darrik said as he put his arm across Kendal's shoulders and helped balance him as they stood there in the bacta.

"Oh, I'm fine, really; just a little Sith Lightning, nothing I can't handle," Kendal responded in his usual sarcastic voice. His face then sobered as he turned to Avvin. "I'm sorry," he said quietly. "We tried our best, but even with the battle meditation, he was too strong for us."

"Don't be sorry, my old friend," Avvin said solemnly. "Besides, we're not out of the game yet."

A grinding of metal-against-metal sounded from the other perforation in the wall, and everyone turned their attention to the other twisted crater. A sudden force push erupted from the crater, and the intertwined durasteel exploded outward, falling back against the sides of the wall. The Jedi Master with the cyan double-bladed lightsaber, Jedi Master Salina Kelrune, slowly stepped out of the hole and dropped down a few feet to the bacta-flooded floor. Her light blonde hair was strewn down in an unkempt manner, and her pale yellow shirt was crisscrossed with shallow, dark slashes from the Sith Lord's lightsaber.

Salina raised her ragged face upward and nodded towards Avvin, her breath coming in long gasps. "Master Corrind," she finally panted out, her voice soft.

"Master Kelrune, I'm glad you're still alive," Avvin responded, relieved. He then gazed around him, and visibly winced as he caught sight of some of the dead Jedis' bodies that were pushed up against the wall or lying head-down in the bacta liquid.

"I'm…," he started, and then raised his chin up to meet everyone at eye level. "I'm sorry that my battle-meditation has done nothing to stop Reszrinn, and I am sorry for all of the good Jedi who have been lost today. But, if we do not defeat the one who killed them, then their deaths shall have been in vain. We can not let Reszrinn leave this ship alive, no matter what the costs; else he could cause millions more deaths across the galaxy in his strive for power and revenge."

"We understand," Kendal said, catching Salina's eye to make sure they both agreed. "Shall we start to evacuate the ship?"

Avvin twitched his mouth for half a second, and then replied, "Yes… we'll need to get everyone off in case we don't make it out of this alive…" The Jedi Grand Master then turned to Darrik and said, "Darrik, get those droids of yours' to access the ship's computer and issue an alert to abandon ship. If worse comes to worse, then we will have to self-destruct the Ecliptic Sun to keep Reszrinn from getting off alive."

Darrik nodded his head tersely, his mind barely taking in the full implications of the order. He then spun around in order to find the two droids, and spotted Artoo a couple of meters away near the wall, trying to roll through the bluish liquid toward a pile of rubble and loose pipes.

"Artoo," he called out as he trudged up to the little astromech droid. "I need you to access the ship's computer and send out a red alert out to evacuate the ship."

Artoo responded with a loud twitter of beeps, and then rolled off toward one of the bridge's few upright computer terminals. Darrik watched him go for a second, and then turned around to the pile that Artoo had been heading towards. He saw a golden metallic arm sprouted from the debris that was waving back and forth in a frantic motion.

"Master, is that you?!" Threepio called out shrilly, though his voice was muffled beneath the rubble. "Oh, it is you, master! I'm so glad you're here! I seem to have lodged my head into an awkward angle between a few of these pipes, and I am unable to properly-"

"Ahh, Threepio," Darrik cut, shaking his head in as he grabbed the droid's metallic hand and hoisted him from the wreckage. "All better now?"

"Oh, yes master; thank you very much. I was beginning to wonder if I had been forgotten and was going to be left there for-"

"Okay, Threepio; can you do me a favor," Darrik interrupting the droid.

"Why, certainly, master. Anything that you would deem worthy for me to perform I would gladly accept as an act of-"

"Good, can you go check on Amirrya and make sure she's alright?" Darrik asked as he gazed over at Amirrya's limp form. She was on her back, facing head-up in the bacta, and her chest was rising in a constant pattern that indicated she was still breathing.

"Of course, master. I am, after all, versatile enough in medical procedures to properly-"

Darrik stopped listening as he stepped away from Threepio and walked back towards Cyrinity and Brenden.

"How are you doing?" he asked Cyrinity, who was leaning back down against the floor with Brenden's support.

"Not at my best right now…" she said softly. "I think I might be able to walk some, but-"

"Darrik," Avvin suddenly called out tersely. He was clustered around Kendal and Salina, and the three Jedi Masters all held their lightsabers deactivated at their sides. "I need you to get Amirrya and everyone else as far away from here as you can. When Reszrinn gets here, I don't want anyone being caught up in the fight; especially not Amirrya, if what he has said is true."

"Yes sir," Darrik nodded towards Avvin, and then said, "And may the force be with you… with all of you."

"And may the force be with you, too," Avvin returned the parting, and then the three Jedi Masters turned back to face the wreckage of the bacta tank hallway.

Darrik looked back at Brenden and Cyrinity as they lay slouched against each other. "Brenden; think that you'll be able to carry her?" he asked quietly, indicating Cyrinity.

Cyrinity's eyebrows perked up at this and she said, "You know, I may be injured, but I can at least walk to the-"

"Yeah," Brenden cut her off as he placed his arms around her body and carefully lifted her up off of the bacta-flooded floor. Cyrinity's face contorted as pain arched up her shoulder, but she held on to Brenden's grasp and looped her arms around his neck, not interjecting again.

"Okay, come on," Darrik said, and turned around towards Amirrya. She was lying just as she had been a few seconds ago, and Threepio was bent over her checking her vital signs. Darrik slowly trudged through the bacta towards them both, with Brenden and Cyrinity close behind him.

"Oh, Master Fate!" Threepio exclaimed as he turned around and faced Darrik. "The young woman, Amirrya Bray, does seem to be in a kind of Jedi stasis, as Master Avvin Corrind said earlier. She appears relatively unharmed by the recent electrified shockwave, and her breathing is that of someone within a deep sleep. There are no broken bones or deep scars besides those that were already there, though she was slightly cut around her arm by the shattering of the transparisteel of the bacta tank. I think that if she is able to-"

"Threepio," Darrik cut in briskly, "You and Artoo meet us by the main viewport, at the control section, once Artoo is done issuing the abandon ship command, okay?"

"Yes sir, err, wait… The abandon ship command?! Oh, dear! But sir, we don't have a reliable means of transportation to-"

"Okay, Threepio?" Darrik asked again, more forcefully, his head tilting slightly to the side as he said it.

"Err, yes sir, though shouldn't we be evacuating, too, if we are issuing an abandon-"

"Okay, let's go," Darrik called over his shoulder to Brenden and Cyrinity. He then knelt down beside Amirrya and carefully placed his arms into the bacta liquid and under her lightweight figure. Her lithe form pressed against his as he lifted her up, and then Darrik began walking determinedly toward the control section of the bridge, where the viewport and most of the bridge's computers were located.

Amirrya's head was bent down toward Darrik's chest as he carried her in his two-armed grasp, and one arm waved freely behind her while the other was propped up against Darrik's side. Her front and back were soaked from the bacta, and her hair was sprung out in a wet whoosh across her shoulders. Darrik kept trying to focus on the here and now, but his attention kept drifting back to what had happened to Amirrya and how she could have survived so much dark side energy being transferred through her.

_Could she really have turned to the dark side after going through all of that? Well, she's been in Reszrinn's captivity for nine years, if what he said is true! Anything could have happened. I just hope that… _Darrik stole a look at Amirrya's face as he walked. Her eyes were closed, her eyelashes sprawled out beneath her eyes, but he could sense an inner turmoil within her, radiating outward in the force.

Abruptly, Darrik's foot lifted out of the bacta and he looked down. He was at the main viewport, the section of the bridge where most of the computer terminals and controls for the bridge were located, and the incline that raised this control section up above the rest of the room had stopped the flood of bacta from overrunning everything. Darrik hurriedly continued on until he came to an open space near the viewport, and then set Amirrya down on the dry decking. Brenden came up behind him with Cyrinity, and he likewise set her down a few feet away from Amirrya, near the transparisteel of the viewport.

As Darrik stood back up, his gaze met the outside of the viewport. The remains of the moon that the Ecliptic Sun has hit hours earlier had blanketed out into a massive grey dust cloud by now, and this consumed half of the entire ship in its misty embrace. The bright green planet of Acchrin was barely visible through the haze, and small chunks of what was left of the moon could be seen floating idly through the dust cloud.

Darrik slowly turned his attention from the viewport and looked around. Surrounding him was an arc of computer terminals and controls for the Ecliptic Sun. Past this was a cleared isle for walking down, and a few meters past this the decking sloped back down into the bacta liquid that covered the rest of the bridge.

Threepio and Artoo then came into sight as they trudged through the bluish fluid towards Darrik. They came up onto the incline, and Darrik asked, "Artoo, did you get the command to evacuate the ship sent out?"

A high-pitched, resolute beep sounded at this question, and Darrik took it for a 'yes'.

"Okay, good. Threepio, you and Artoo make sure Cyrinity is taken care of. Try and get her a bacta patch or something, if you can."

"Of course, sir." Threepio bowed and took off with Artoo toward Cyrinity as Brenden came up beside him.

"Is he there yet?" Brenden asked as he gazed toward the three Jedi Masters who stood clustered together, still facing the remains of the bacta tank hallway.

"No sign of him yet… Reszrinn should probably have gotten here by now, though."

"Do you think he, um, got himself killed in the explosion, or something?"

Darrik gave Brenden a humoring expression as he rolled his eyes. "With someone this powerful, I seriously doubt that they would be stupid enough to get themselves killed like that, though I guess we can hope. Unfortunately, though, I can still feel something dark in the force, somewhere." Darrik gazed around for a second, and then focused his attention back on the three Jedi Masters. "I just hope it doesn't come to having to self-destruct the Ecliptic Sun…"

Suddenly, the three Jedi Masters' lightsabers sprang to life, and they each stretched into their own fighting stances. Their gazes, however, were darting around wildly, as if searching for their opponent.

"They must have sensed something," Darrik whispered to Brenden from their crouched position behind the arc of computer terminals.

Another long second passed by, and abruptly a section of the crosswalk that was situated directly above the three Jedi Masters shot down from its anchorage and came crashing towards them. The three Jedi all dived in different directions as the durasteel walkway crashed into the bacta below and caused a shallow splash to erupt away from the point of impact.

The Jedi quickly gathered themselves up off the floor and peered upward toward the multiple crosswalks that crisscrossed above them. Then, in unison, the three Jedi Masters leapt into a force-assisted jump and disappeared from view as they entered the tangle of crosswalks above.


	8. Chapter VIII

Future's Sacrifice - VIII

Salina was the first to land on the unstable crosswalk, and she expertly kept her footing as the durasteel frame swayed beneath under her weight. Then the other two Jedi Masters landed beside her, and all three of them twirled their lightsabers up into a two-handed defensive position. A deep purple, a dark gold, and two cyan beams of light erupted into life as each Jedi Master ignited their lightsaber.

Reszrinn stood a few meters away on the same row, his head tilted slightly to the right and his lightsaber deactivated in his hand. He wore that same implacable, icy sneer of someone who looked upon you with contempt. His black shirt with dark blue streaks through it was tattered here and there from the Jedis' attempts to strike him, and only those few small singe marks marked where a lightsaber had gotten too close.

"Truly brilliant efforts to try and stop me," Reszrinn began in what might have been considered an almost-kind voice. Then that almost-kind-voice careened off an edge as he said, "Unfortunately, the games end here."

"Oh, joy," Kendal muttered under his breath, barely audible.

Reszrinn twirled his lightsaber hilt into a two-handed grasp as he ignited both the red and silver blades and then held them diagonally out in front of his face. The other three Jedi Masters held their positions steadily, their blades not wavering in the slightest.

Reszrinn's sneer curved back into place from behind the red glow of his lightsaber blade, and then the Sith Lord darted forward.

He was upon the three Jedi Masters in seconds, and the red blade of his lightsaber twirled up sideways as the three Jedi struggled to block it. The flurry of blows continued for a few seconds, with neither side being pushed back, and then Reszrinn made a barbaric sideways slash toward Avvin. Avvin blocked the crimson blade with his gold lightsaber just in time and a static of sparks erupted. Then the Sith Lord disengaged and spun his lightsaber around so that the silver end blocked both Salina and Kendal's strikes.

Reszrinn passed his lightsaber to his left hand while swooping down low. He then brought the red blade around in a wide arc at the Jedi's kneecaps. All three of the Masters jumped, narrowly avoiding the red blade as it swung by beneath them, and then they came back down upon the Sith Lord with vicious attacks of their own. Reszrinn narrowly managed to jerk his own lightsaber up in time to block their attacks, and he took a step back.

But as he was taking this step back, the Sith Lord brought his lightsaber back up into a two handed grasp and spun it high above his head, keeping the Jedi at bay from beneath him while coming down on them from atop. Then, in mid-spin, as Kendal and Avvin were about to block the two blades, the red lightsaber beam suddenly vanished and the Sith Lord lashed out wildly to his side at Salina with the single silver blade. Salina frantically brought one end of her lightsaber up to block the Sith Lord's blade, and a silver and cyan sparkling clash of light blossomed into existence. Salina held the pose for a second, and then twisted her double-bladed lightsaber to the right in an effort to try and bring Reszrinn's silver blade along with it.

But the Sith Lord had anticipated the move, and as soon as she started to twist her cyan lightsaber, Reszrinn spun the silver end of his own lightsaber down and deactivated it while at the same time igniting the crimson blade. He then followed through with his spin and lashed down ferociously at Salina with the red blade.

Salina spun her own blades around and brought the other end of her cyan lightsaber between her and Reszrinn just as the crimson blade struck it in a fizzle of static discharge. The Sith Lord pushed down hard with his single red blade, driving Salina back until her elbows were leaning against the handrails that were on either side of the crosswalk. She held her cyan lightsaber against his red blade tenaciously, unwilling to give up, her face lined with sweat as she glowered back into the Sith Lord's dark eyes.

Then, from beyond the glow of the two lightsaber beams, she spotted Avvin and Kendal about to come down on the Sith Lord. They raised their lightsabers in what would surely have been a killing blow, but right as they did this Reszrinn's head shot around and he held his left hand up toward them both. A force push suddenly erupted from the Sith Lord's hand, and the two Jedi Masters were hurled back to the other side of the crosswalk.

Kendal's back hit the handrails that lined the other side of the crosswalk, and with a grunt of pain he flipped backwards over them and barely caught the top portion of the handrail as the rest of his body swooped out beneath him helplessly. Avvin was thrown back lengthwise of the crosswalk, and he fell to a stop a few meters away from the Sith Lord.

Salina then watched as Reszrinn turned his head back to her. Even in the bright glow of the crimson and cyan lightsaber beams, she could see his mouth curve up into that cadaverous sneer he wore. Then Reszrinn jerked the red blade back away from her, and she thought briefly to try and lunge towards him with her cyan lightsaber and maybe land a lucky strike.

But even as this thought streaked through her mind, the Sith Lord spun the red blade of his lightsaber away and, in one fluid motion, took the deactivated end of his lightsaber's hilt and slammed it against her stomach.

All of the breath went out of her as he did this, and she involuntarily let out a gasp of air and dropped her double-bladed lightsaber to the ground as her fingers convulsed from the sudden shock. Salina's head was tilted down toward her stomach, so that she was staring at Reszrinn's lightsaber hilt, and she could feel water on her eyes. Then she heard the Sith Lord laugh, the cruel, pitiless laugh of one who enjoys killing, and the hilt of his lightsaber erupted into a silver beam of light through her stomach.

Salina would have cried out had she any breath left, but all she could feel was the intense pain of the silver lightsaber blade as it pierced through her abdomen. Then she was falling, toppling over the handrails as she did so, the pain in her stomach blossoming out to the rest of her body.

She could dimly see the crisscrossing crosswalks above her, spinning around in her perspective as she fell, and then she hit down hard on her back against the decking of the bridge. Bacta splashed up around her, and her arms were yanked backward as she hit the floor, her blonde hair settling down over her face.

Slowly, Salina's eyes closed, and the insistent pain of the lightsaber wound faded away into nothingness as darkness enshrouded her.

* * *

Kendal flipped backwards over the handrailing of the crosswalk, and he narrowly grasped his right hand around the topmost part of the handrails before he fell. His hand strained from the effort of holding himself up, but then he called upon the force and used its strength to flip back over the railings and land shakily onto the crosswalk. His feet were spread wide for stability on the swaying walkways's frame, and when he lifted his head he saw Reszrinn's silver lightsaber sprouting from Salina's body. The Sith Lord then spun around, deactivating the silver blade as he did so, and let Salina flip over the side of the railing and fall.

"NO!" Kendal shouted, reaching his hand up reflexively before he realized that there was nothing he could do. He slowly curled his outstretched fingers into a fist and then lowered his hand to his side, his eyes twitching as he glared at the Sith Lord.

Avvin came up beside him a second later and, upon seeing what had happened, let out a slow breath of animosity. He glared at Reszrinn just as Kendal had, and then swung his golden lightsaber into a two-handed grasp in front of him. Kendal mirrored him a second later, and his deep purple lightsaber swung into position directly beside Avvin's.

Reszrinn's sneer morphed into a look of contempt as he said in a whisper, "and now, to finish this…"

Kendal and Avvin didn't give him a chance to say anything else as they launched themselves at the Sith Lord, their lightsaber flailing. Reszrinn reacted quickly as he ignited the silver end of his lightsaber and slashed upward, parrying Avvin's gold beam. He then twirled the crimson blade around at the same time while blocking Avvin's lightsaber and intercepted Kendal's deep violet blade in a low strike.

The two Jedi held their stances against the two blades for just over a second, and then Avvin deactivated his golden lightsaber and rolled low under Reszrinn's silver blade, coming up right behind the Sith Lord. Kendal held his purple lightsaber against Reszrinn's blade for just a second longer, giving Avvin the time to move, and then retreated a step backward before the Sith Lord could retaliate.

Reszrinn snarled as Avvin reignited his lightsaber and came at him from behind while Kendal came at him from the front. The Sith Lord's red beam suddenly vanished, and Reszrinn swung his lightsaber hilt into a two-handed grip behind his head so that the silver blade was pointing down behind him while he continued to face Kendal. Avvin's gold lightsaber impacted against the silver blade a millisecond later, and as it did the Sith Lord kicked his right foot into the air towards Kendal, still griping his own lightsaber which he used it for support as he kicked.

Reszrinn's kick connected squarely with Kendal's jaw, and this sent the Jedi Master sailing down to the decking of the crosswalk, lightsaber and all. Reszrinn continued through with the spin that the kick had started, and he landed back on the deck facing Avvin with the silver lightsaber beam held down to the floor between them. Reszrinn quickly took a grasp on his lightsaber hilt and swung the blade up, knocking the Jedi Grand Master off-balance for a second. Then Avvin regained his fighting stance and charged at the Sith Lord, lightsaber held high.

Reszrinn reignited his crimson blade, and then lashed out at Avvin in a three-strike set with both sides of the double-bladed lightsaber. Avvin blocked the first two strikes, and then Kendal came back into the fight from behind, parrying the third strike as Reszrinn swiveled the blade back around towards Kendal.

The fight continued, with all three of the duelists striking vicious blows toward each other. One of Reszrinn's lightsaber blades slashed through a part of the railing as he parried an attack, and the loose railing clattered off the side of the crosswalk and to the floor with a splash. The decisive crackle of each lightsaber impact echoed about the domed top of the bridge, and this echo was virtually the only thing that filled the three combatant's ears as they dueled.

The colors of gold, red, purple, and silver all melded together from the flurry of blows, and the Jedi and Sith's lightsabers danced back and forth between each other in a frenzied promenade.

Abruptly, Reszrinn ended the intensity of the duel by leaping into a backwards summersault and landing a few meters away from the two Jedi Masters, facing them. Both Kendal and Avvin were panting heavily, and sweat dripped from their faces in small droplets. They both shot daggers at Reszrinn in their glare, and their lightsabers where held out to their sides, weary but steady.

Then, with a grin, Reszrinn swept his silver blades across the entire width of the crosswalk with the sound of a lightsaber melting through metal. Avvin and Kendal both stumbled as the bridge shifted abruptly, and then jerked to a standstill.

Kendal's eyes shot up after he stabilized himself, and he saw that the two support cables on either side of the bridge, on either side of Reszrinn, were now the only things holding the crosswalk up. The Jedi Master's eyes then met Reszrinn's, and he knew exactly what the Sith Lord was about to do.

Abruptly, Reszrinn twirled the two blades of his lightsaber around in a wide arc, and sheared both of the support cables.

A loud, metallic twang sounded as the two support cables were severed, and suddenly the end of the crosswalk began to plummet downwards. Kendal and Avvin skidded awkwardly forward as this happened, and out of the corner of their eyes they spotted Reszrinn jump from the lip of the crosswalk where he had severed the cables to where they were now falling. Caught off-balance, the two Jedi Masters narrowly avoided certain-death as they raised their lightsabers up just in time to deflect the red and silver blades of Reszrinn's lightsaber as the Sith Lord tumbled down upon them.

Then the three force-wielders fell into an awkward, jumbled roll down the slope of the crosswalk, right up until the severed end of the walkway collided with the bacta-flooded floor and sent them all sailing into the air. A short second of free-fall followed, and then all three of them crashed back down against the walkways' slanted deck.


	9. Chapter IX

Future's Sacrifice - IX

Darrik watched in horror as a section of one of the crosswalks from above suddenly gave way and came slanting down toward the ground, its other side still connected to the rest of the crosswalk. He saw Avvin and Kendal fall forward from the sudden drop, and then saw Reszrinn jump down and engage them as the crosswalk fell.

A second later, the crosswalk's end had plummeted down into the bridge's decking, and a splash of bacta erupted from where the end had hit. Darrik watched as Kendal, Avvin, and Reszrinn went shooting through the air for a second before they came crashing back down onto the slanted crosswalk.

"Oh dear!" Threepio called out from beside Cyrinity, where he had been helping Brenden apply bacta patches to her scar.

"Oh dear, is right," Darrik muttered out of the corner of his mouth, his eyes still locked on the figures in the distance. Kendal and Avvin had gotten up by now, and Reszrinn was charging towards them again. The Sith Lord collided with the two Jedi Masters in a flash of color as lightsabers sparked against each other, and Kendal and Avvin were driven back a few steps before they both leapt off the side of the crosswalk and onto the bacta-strewn floor. Reszrinn then jumped after them, and a series of lightsaber clashes ensued.

"Brenden, we have to get out of here," Darrik said, taking his attention from the three duelists to look Brenden squarely in the eyes. "Is there any way we can get everyone to the Daybreaker in time?"

"Well," Brenden's mouth swiveled for a second, and then he said, "We could probably make it to the ship from here. In fact, it's not that far from where we are now." He pointed toward a doorway on the side of the bridge that said Docking above it.

"The problem is…" Brenden started, his voice heavy, "If we leave now, we'll be leaving Kendal and Avvin behind. And I know we're not going to do that. And if both Kendal and Avvin get…," Brenden grimaced, "…killed, by Reszrinn, then we'll have to set this ship for self-destruct, and at least one of us will still have to be onboard if that happens."

Darrik nodded solemnly, and then asked, "how about if you two get to the Daybreaker while I stay here with Artoo in case we have to blow everything up. You could take Amirrya, too, and-"

"-And your not getting rid of us that easily," Cyrinity choked out from where she lay. She struggled for a second to prop herself against the transparisteel of the viewport, but then Brenden helped her up and she fixed Darrik with an unwavering gaze. "You're not going to play hero, here, while we're stuck in your ship, safe and sound."

"Yeah, seriously," Brenden said, his tone more austere then Darrik had ever heard before. "We are not just going to leave you here to set a self-destruct sequence while we're onboard the Daybreaker." His voice then broke out into his usual sense of humor. "Besides, I would have to hear Threepio complaining the whole way home."

Darrik smiled against his will, and then nodded reluctantly. "Let's just hope it doesn't come to that…" He looked back to the duel between Kendal, Avvin, and Darth Reszrinn. The Sith Lord was striking out with vicious, tumultuous strikes that borderlined on barbaric as he drove the two Jedi Masters back further and further through the bacta liquid.

_And I can't even do anything…_ Darrik thought to himself as he forced his attention away from the fight, trying not to think about it as Avvin and Kendal's last few moments alive. _They can't die… they just can't…_ Darrik then turned his attention to Amirrya, who was laying face-up on the decking.

She was still soaked from the bacta, and the decking under her had pooled around her slightly from the bacta that had drained off of her. Her dark brown hair was swooped to her side, and her pale, peachy skin still stood out prominently from her white top and bottoms. She was barefoot, as she had been in the bacta tank, and her legs were curled up to her sides.

Suddenly, Amirrya's eyelids fluttered, and a wave of –emotions– washed over Darrik for a brief second. Then her eyelids ceased their movement, and the wave of emotions vanished as if it had never been there in the first place.

Darrik's eyebrows crossed down in confusion, and he walked the five feet over to where she lay before squatting down beside her. She looked just as she had earlier, as if in a deep slumber, though he could feel the darkness swirling within her.

Darrik sat down next to her and carefully reached over and felt her forehead. It was cold, a deathly cold, and Darrik quickly jerked his hand back. He could feel the darkness emanating from her through the force, and he was circumspect to touch her again.

_But I can feel the light side inside of her, shrouded by this darkness… I know it's there, somewhere… I can feel it… There has to be something I can do…_

Darrik's mouth twitched for a second, and then he put his arms under Amirrya's back and lifted her up to his side. Her head rolled back as he did so, and her long, dark brown hair fell into a waterfall as he laid her back-first into his lap, with his right arm still supporting her head. She was deathly cold, and Darrik could feel the iciness of her body as her smooth skin brushed up against his. He slowly put his left arm next to her side, and then propped her head up with his leg.

Darrik put his right hand to her forehead, as he had seen Kendal do so many times before, and took a deep breath. Then, disregarding all thoughts about the dark side's influence on her, he reached out in the force towards her.

A swirl of darkness is what he first felt, and Darrik almost drew back at the unexpected desolation of the experience. But then, beneath the thick encasement of darkness, Darrik felt something else. It almost seemed like textures beneath the blackness, like the sparkles portrayed by a row of glistening gemstones. Then, within these textures of emotion, Darrik felt something trying to break free, trying with all its effort to get past the dark shroud that was concealing it.

_Amirrya…? Can you hear me?_ Darrik asked through the force toward Amirrya.

A few seconds passed, and then a warm feeling of hope blossomed out within the textures hidden beneath the dark shroud. But just as quickly, the darkness swelled up and crushed the feeling of hope beneath its weight. The tenebrous tendrils of the shadowy wall that enshrouded Amirrya then became even thicker, and the textures within were almost completely blotted out by the shadow's mass.

Darrik slowly pulled away from Amirrya, and he came back to reality panting hard with his head resting down against hers. He drew back and stared down at her tranquil, creamy face. Her eyes were unmoving, and her smooth face and body were as cold as ever against his touch.

Darrik then looked up from Amirrya and saw Cyrinity and Brenden staring at him strangely.

"I…, I sensed something from within her through the force," Darrik said, slightly defensively.

"Well, you've been hunched over her for about a minute, and-" Brenden started, but then stopped as a cry echoed out from across the bridge.

Darrik jerked his head up and focused his attention back on the lightsaber fight which was now visible from where he lay. Avvin, Kendal, and Reszrinn were still in the bacta, only a few meters from the fallen crosswalk. Avvin and Reszrinn were dueling fiercely, and Kendal was staggering back away from them, clutching his shoulder in pain where he had apparently been grazed by Reszrinn's lightsaber.

No! Darrik thought, his hands reflexively going for the lightsaber hilt at his belt and grasping around it tightly. His eyebrows were slanted downward, and his eyes were glazed over with worry.

Kendal drove his violet lightsaber up hard to his sides, though his arms were exhausted from the continuous duel. Reszrinn's silver blade glanced off of the blow, and then the Sith Lord thrust the crimson end sideways towards him. Kendal ducked, but utterly exhausted from the duel he couldn't move fast enough, and the red blade slashed across his right shoulder.

Kendal staggered back from the duel, cringing in pain, and let out a short cry of anguish. He was still in the bacta, and his feet felt sluggish as he tried to move. Avvin was now dueling Reszrinn one-on-one, and the Jedi Grand Master was retreating back a few steps after every few swings.

Kendal tightened the grip on his own lightsaber hilt, and charged forward toward the Sith Lord, ignoring the pain sprouting across his right shoulder. Kendal's lightsaber came down upon the crimson end of Reszrinn's blade, and then the Sith Lord twirled the blade backwards to make Kendal lose his balance as he fell forward. Even as Kendal stumbled forward, the Sith Lord brought his own left hand up from his lightsaber hilt toward the Jedi Master, and a force push suddenly rocketed Kendal backwards.

Kendal collided against the transparisteel of the viewport a second later, and he blinked open his eyes a moment before Brenden came running up to him. The young pilot's modified blaster was in his hands, and he was constantly glancing back to where Reszrinn and Avvin now fought.

"Kendal, are you, um, alright?!" he asked hurriedly.

"Ah, not really…" Kendal said raggedly, his voice coming in gasps. He stretched his arm out over his wounded shoulder, and then looked back at Brenden. "Look, Brenden; I want you and everyone else to get back to the Daybreaker and get out of here. And activate the self-destruct before you go…"

"Well, that's what Darrik said he wanted us to do, but he said he's not leaving without you, so we aren't going to either."

Kendal frowned and looked towards Darrik. His padwan was a few meters away, cradling the unconscious form of Amirrya in his arms, and staring at Kendal worriedly. His lightsaber was drawn but unlit in his right hand.

_I should have figured as much,_ Kendal thought to himself. He looked back to the fight between Reszrinn and Avvin, and then grasped his lightsaber a few feet away from him in his left hand. He then shakily stood back up, and started forward toward the duel between Jedi Grand Master and Sith Lord.

* * *

Reszrinn's crimson blade had deactivated as soon as he had pushed Kendal backwards, and his single silver blade was now coming at Avvin left and right as the Grand Jedi Master struggled to parry each attack. The Sith Lord was finally panting, and his face was streaked with sweat just as Avvin's was.

_He's drawn on the force much more than I have… _Avvin thought to himself as he batted back another strike from the silver blade, knowing that the Sith Lord had fought much longer and harder than he had. _I may have a chance, if I can just hold him off a bit longer… And if he doesn't kill me first… Oh, lovely thoughts…_

Reszrinn then swung his lightsaber diagonally at Avvin's legs, and the Jedi Grand Master was torn away from his speculations as he desperately parried the attack away from him. The Sith Lord was no longer sneering, but he held more of a look of hatred in the way that he glowered down at the Jedi Grand Master.

Avvin slowly backed away from Reszrinn through the hindrance of bacta that covered the ground, blocking each thrust of the Sith Lord's silver blade in a coalescence of gold and silver. Avvin's foot then stepped against the broken durasteel surface of one of the fallen crosswalks that had crashed to the ground earlier, and he stepped up out of the bacta and onto twisted heap of metal, batting back attacks the entire time.

Reszrinn stepped up after him, the scowl across his face deepening, his silver blade dancing back and forth as he forced the Jedi Grand Master back even further. Avvin almost tripped on a loose piece of metal as he backed away, but he kept his balance and forced his hand to keep swinging the golden blade.

Suddenly, amidst the twirls of silver, Avvin's gold lightsaber found a breach in the Sith Lord's defenses, and he struck forward with his golden blade as fast as his exhausted muscles would allow him.

The golden blade singed a scar across Reszrinn's left shoulder, and Avvin's spirits soared as the Sith Lord howled and he shied back from the attack for a split second. But then, a gleam of malice appeared in Reszrinn's eyes, and the Sith Lord launched himself upon the Jedi Grand Master once again, his silver lightsaber everywhere at once.

Avvin leaned back, barely keeping his balance upon the wreckage of the crosswalk, and he desperately jerked his lightsaber this way and that to block the barrage of silver being thrown at him. The slash across the Sith Lord's shoulder seemed to have only made Reszrinn's attacks more ruthless, and the Sith Lord looked more feral and animal-like now then ever before.

Then, Avvin's foot came to rest on the edge of the remains of the crosswalk, and he tenaciously anchored himself into place, not willing to be pushed back any farther toward the edge. Reszrinn's silver blade clashed against his again and again, and sparks flew continuously through the haze of silver and gold, but the Jedi Grand Master held his ground, not letting the Sith Lord drive him back.

Reszrinn's face carved back further into a glower, and his eyebrows slanted downward. Then he abruptly jerked away from the Jedi Grand Master and spun his lightsaber around his back while igniting the crimson blade behind him. When he brought his double-bladed lightsaber back around with his left hand, he lifted the hilt high above his head, grasped it with both hands, and then twirled it down upon Avvin.

Avvin wrenched his arm upward to parry the attack, and the golden lightsaber contacted against Reszrinn's crimson blade in a static of sparks. As he stubbornly held his lightsaber against the Sith Lord's, Avvin spotted Reszrinn's left hand come down from the hilt and point palm-out towards him.

Avvin flew backwards from the force push that followed, and he hit the wall just a few meters away from the wreckage of the crosswalk. His breath went out of him as he impacted against the durasteel, and his lightsaber shot out of his hand and into the bacta that flooded the ground, the hilt barely visible above the bluish liquid.

Avvin stood for a second, his face down, catching his breath. He then groggily raised his head and watched as Reszrinn jumped from the pile of wreckage toward him, the silver and crimson beams of the Sith Lord's lightsaber twirling about in midair.

Avvin stretched his hand down to his side and called his lightsaber to him. The golden blade sprang to life in midair, and Kendal caught it in his outstretched hand right as Reszrinn was coming down upon him. The Jedi Grand Master had just enough time to grip the lightsaber hilt with both hands before Reszrinn's silver blade crashed against it.  
Sparks exploded from the gold and silver blades, and Kendal was pushed backwards, his right foot now propping himself up against the durasteel of the wall.

Reszrinn deactivated the red blade of his lightsaber and stepped up closer to Avvin, gaining leverage over the Grand Jedi Master as he did so. Avvin pushed up furiously against the silver blade, the sweat dripping from his eyebrows onto his cheeks as he did so. But Reszrinn had the advantage over him, being taller, and he pushed down upon the Jedi Grand Master like a rancor.

The constant crackle of the two lightsaber being held together resonated within Avvin's ears, and he watched as Reszrinn's face curved up into a snarl from behind the gold and silver glow. Avvin's hands were trembling, and the force energy that he was calling upon to aid him in his effort to keep his lightsaber held up was waning. Sublimely, he noticed Kendal charging through the bacta toward him, his violet lightsaber raised, his face fearful. _He will be here in just a few seconds, if only I can hold Reszrinn off for that long…_

The gold and silver lightsaber blades were clashed against each other near the hilt, with sparks flying everywhere. Suddenly, Reszrinn reached out with his left hand and caught Avvin's right wrist in a tight vise, while still keeping his right hand pressed down against Avvin's lightsaber with his own. The Sith Lord then flicked his hand to the left, and Avvin's wrist exploded into pain as a sickening crack resounded through the Jedi Grand Master's ears.

Avvin cried out the moment his wrist broke, and his lightsaber flew from his hand, the golden blade deactivating as soon as it lost contact with him. Reszrinn then took his own single silver-bladed lightsaber and tossed it up into an underhanded grip, while still holding Avvin's broken wrist in a tight vise down by his side.  
With a sneer, the Sith Lord took the silver blade and plunged it straight into the Jedi Grand Master's chest.

Avvin's eyes locked into a wide, continuous stare, and then Reszrinn pulled the blade from his body and turned around to face Kendal, who was still running forward.

Avvin slumped to his knees, his hands barely held up toward his chest, and then he fell sideways into the bacta with a loud splash. The Jedi Grand Master's breathing stopped a second later, and darkness overtook him.


	10. Chapter X

Future's Sacrifice – X

Kendal watched in horror as Reszrinn spun the silver blade out from Avvin's chest, and then as the Jedi Grand Master fell lifelessly to the ground a second later.

"NO!" Kendal howled, his glare turning into a snarl. He raised his violet lightsaber in front of his face and glowered at the Sith Lord with hatred.

"Now, isn't that getting a little too close to the dark side?" Reszrinn asked through a frown of his own. The Sith Lord then spun his lightsaber up into a two handed grasp high above his head, completely ignoring the scar across his shoulder, and reignited the crimson blade. A second later, the Sith Lord darted forward unnaturally fast through the bacta that covered the decking.

He was on Kendal in an instant, and the Jedi Master struggled to block both sides of Reszrinn's blades as the Sith Lord attacked with a vicious onslaught of blows and parries, weaving in and out of styles. Kendal retreated back a few steps through the languid bacta liquid, and then tried to hold his ground as Reszrinn made a ruthless outward slash toward him.

Kendal blocked the blow in a static of sparks, heaving hard against the Sith Lord's strength and trying desperately to ignore the pain that was lancing out across his injured shoulder. But then Reszrinn disengaged and started twirling his dual blades back and forth, left and right of his shoulder with his hands a blur of motion in between, and began steadily driving Kendal backwards as he marched confidently forward.

Kendal had no choice but to keep backing up, unable to successfully block the Sith Lord's barrage of twirling blades. Abruptly, as Kendal was still backing up, the crimson end of Reszrinn's blade vanished and, still in the midst of the left and right spin, the Sith Lord used the momentum to lash out toward the Jedi Master.

Kendal tried desperately to jump back and avoid the blow, but Reszrinn's silver blade managed to cut upward in a vicious blow across his left thigh, slicing a line through his black pants and cauterizing a curved scar up to his hips. Kendal let out a gasp of pain and barely managed to stay standing, putting all his weight on his right leg as he hopped backwards another step through the bacta.

Kendal was clutching his thigh with his left hand while holding his lightsaber in his right. He glanced Reszrinn in his peripheral vision lower his lightsaber down to the side, and then raise his left hand up toward the Jedi Master, palm-outward.

Kendal braced himself for the force push that would undoubtedly follow, trying to ready himself for being slammed against the wall again. But then, as he felt the force gather and unleash itself from Reszrinn's palm, his body did not hurl backwards. Instead, his right hand flung upwards and his lightsaber was torn from his grasp, where it hurtled up a short distance before disappearing into the maze of crosswalks above.

Kendal raised his head back up to look Reszrinn in the eye, his eyes glowering. He heard Darrik in the distance shout out, "No!" through his voice and through the force, and he could imagine his padwan starring in wide-eyed horror at the scene.

Then, in one fluid motion, a snarl upon the Sith Lord's face, Reszrinn deactivated the crimson end of his lightsaber and slashed out with the single silver blade in a wide arc toward the undefended Jedi Master's abdomen.

_I'm not giving up that easily, though… _Kendal thought to himself as he pushed his right hand forward and force hurled himself backwards as soon as Reszrinn began to swing his silver blade into the arc.

But the Sith Lord's speed was too great, and the silver blade slashed a centimeter into Kendal's abdomen as he flung himself backwards, leaving a smooth cauterized scar across his stomach.

Kendal screamed in agony as he flew backwards, right up until the point where he landed just a few meters onto the decking of the control section of the bridge, just off of the bacta-flooded lower decking. The Jedi Master's breath was coming in gasps, now, and one hand was across his stomach while the other was against his thigh.

"Unwise, and pathetic," Reszrinn mocked as he slowly strode towards Kendal's writhing figure, twirling the single silver blade back and forth in his right hand. "You knew that that would only prolong the inevitable…"

* * *

_Darrik, don't try and save me; get out of here, now!_ streaked through Darrik's mind as soon as Kendal landed on the dry decking of the control section. Darrik's eyes were wide, looking on at the scene unfolding in front of him. He was still lying on the decking behind the arc of computer terminals, still cradling Amirrya's limp form, and completely unable to move. His lightsaber was in his right hand, unlit, and his knuckles where white around it, trembling.

_Darrik, now!_ Kendal called again through the force as Reszrinn began to speak and started striding toward him.

But Darrik couldn't move, frozen as he was by what he had just seen, and his body wouldn't respond to the commands from his brain. Brenden and Cyrinity were in the same position just a few feet away from him, their eyes glued in horror to both Kendal and Reszrinn.

Darrik knew he should be leaping up and running, along with Brenden and Cyrinity, before it was too late and the Sith Lord turned on them. He should be hoping to bantha that he could set the self-destruct sequence, get to the Daybreaker, and then escape the ship before Reszrinn got to them. But his mind was completely paralyzed, devoid of all rational comprehension, and no matter how hard he tried he could not manage to implore his body to move. All he could sense was fear.

Fear. It was everywhere around him. It was inside of him, emanating from Kendal, radiating from both Brenden and Cyrinity, and even coming out from the deep presence within Amirrya.

But then, in the backdrop of all this fear and turmoil, a light flickered into existence. Darrik didn't even know what it was, or how it had gotten there, but suddenly a wave of absoluteness washed over him. A second later, he became infinitely certain of what he had to do.

Darrik broke through the paralysis of fear that had held him, and he turned his head away from Kendal and to Amirrya's smooth face. He slowly closed his eyes, and then reached out in the force toward the dark barrier that was the only thing separating his and Amirrya's essence. Darrik then took everything that Avvin had ever taught him about the force, all the power that one could wield with it and what responsibilities that brought on, and plunged them into the shadowy barrier.

Bright streaks of light collided into the barrier, meshing themselves into the tendrils of darkness like water through cracks. The darkness, the fear and anger and hate of the shadowy essence, suddenly trembled under the light's intensity. Another bright streak of light jabbed at it from Darrik, through the force, and then something from within the shadowy mass flared into existence. It was another light, emanating out from the center of the shadows, and it struck out at the walls enshrouding it as well.

* * *

Reszrinn stepped slowly up out of the bacta liquid and onto the dry decking of the control section. Kendal lay barely a meter away, staring up at him unusually calm, his elbows propped up against the decking so that he could look the Sith Lord in the eye.  
Kendal's lightsaber wasn't in sight, and nothing would save the Jedi Master this time. Reszrinn's mouth curved into that twisted, icy smile of his, and he lowered his silver lightsaber blade down low to the ground.

* * *

Darrik formed another streak of light through the force, and, as he sent it plowing into the shadowy mass, the other light from the inside struck out into the darkness at the same time that he did. With this combined strike, the darkness that enshrouded Amirrya suddenly shattered, and the shadows of fear and anger and hate suddenly transformed into a wave as it exploded outward.

* * *

Reszrinn held the silver blade down low to his side, right next to Kendal. His sneer was carved into his face, and then he brought the silver lightsaber up to his shoulder, one handed, ready to strike Kendal down.

* * *

Darrik's eyes flew open, and his head was jerked backwards as the dark wave of force energy erupted outward from Amirrya. The wave was almost visible, with the sheer power that emanated from it within the force, and Darrik caught both Cyrinity and Brenden recoil as the wave passed over them. The wave passed harmlessly over all the remaining electronics of the control section, and it then it passed over the Sith Lord.

Reszrinn barely faltered as the dark side energy wave passed over him, but he froze his lightsaber in mid-strike and turned his head to stare at where Amirrya and Darrik lay. His face was a paradox, and his eyebrows were slanted down low to his eyes as he gazed at both Amirrya and Darrik in puzzlement.

Suddenly, Amirrya's body came to life, and she jerked her head up from Darrik's lap, gasping in a long breath as she did so. Here eyes were barely focused when she spotted Reszrinn, and she suddenly jumped athletically from where she lay up onto her feet.  
Her hand was held outward toward the Sith Lord a moment later, and a force push erupted into existence from her outstretched palm before Reszrinn could react. With bewilderment still upon his face, the Sith Lord shot backwards, lightsaber and all, away from Kendal and out of sight behind the remains of the shattered bacta tank hallway in the distance of the bridge.

Amirrya's hand was still outstretched as the Sith Lord disappeared from sight, and then her arm fell down wearily to her sides. She stumbled slightly, her eyes closing, and Darrik raced up to catch her as she fell backwards.

Darrik caught her lithe form carefully, perplexity crossing his face. Amirrya then reopened her eyes as she landed in his arms, as if coming out of shock. Her face was one of wonder itself, and her eyes were wide. Quivering, she stabilized herself and, with Darrik's help, stood back up.

Darrik took a step back from her as she stood. Her legs were trembling slightly, and her hands were held to her side, facing up. She was looking down at her palms with uncertainty, and she slowly turned them around and back again as if admiring a certain type of nail polish. She was still panting, though less noticeably now. Her white top and bottom that she had worn in the bacta tank where still damp, and the wan lighting of the room glistened against her peachy skin as she stood there.

"Amirrya…?" Darrik whispered, taking a step forward, his eyebrows raised.

Amirrya looked up from where she stood, her eyes still frozen in bewilderment. "I…," she started, and then tensed herself, stopping her trembling muscles. "I don't know what happened… or how I did that…" she said softly while looking in the direction of where she had thrown Reszrinn. Her voice was faint, but it contained an unmistakable sense of confidence and knowledge within it. She was looking down at her hands again, and then she raised her head back up to look Darrik in the eyes.

"What did you do…?" she asked uncertainly.

"I'm… I'm not really sure," Darrik stammered out. "You were unconscious, and some kind of dark essence was surrounding you…"

Amirrya nodded slowly, and then said, "Yes, I… I could sense my surroundings, but I couldn't touch them…" She blinked her eyes a few times. "I've been like this for weeks, ever since Reszrinn first forced me into that pillar…" She shuddered, her bare arms glistening in the light. "He has held me in his captivity for years, ever since he abducted me from Kashyyyk and killed my Master. All that time, I've been trying to resist the dark side's temptations, looking back to what I knew in the light side of the force to keep my resolve from wavering…" Her faint voice was dark, and her eyes were glazed over as she stared at the ground.

"After spending years on Korriban, Reszrinn took me to this other, original Korriban, where he used me to transfer power into himself…" She paused. "…the dark side energies gathered around me, and I couldn't fight it any longer, so I retreated back inside myself. The darkness enshrouded me, and then I couldn't break free from its grasp. When the Jedi Masters came to Korriban and challenged Vidaris, I managed to use the power I could still command in the force to disrupt the force field surrounding me, before the darkness swelled up and drove me back into myself. Luckily, that small disruption was enough to distract Vidaris, and ultimately defeat her, though I knew that Reszrinn still lurked nearby, watching, waiting. The Jedi Masters then brought me to this ship, and I sensed Reszrinn onboard it, hiding his presence from the rest of the Masters. I had been unable to warn anyone, though, since my body was in the stasis forced upon me by the dark side of Korriban's core..." Her voice trailed off again, and then came back stronger then ever.

"I… I am not really sure how, but I think that by resisting the dark side of Korriban's core, I have become more in tune with the force than ever before. I feel as if I could do anything with the force." She looked down at her open palms again. "I think that that is how I was able to throw Reszrinn back just now."

Brenden had gotten up as soon as Amirrya had started speaking, and he was now treading back with Kendal over his shoulder. Kendal's face was a crease of pain, but the old Jedi Master held silent, hobbling along on his good leg.

Darrik turned from Amirrya toward his Master and Brenden as they came up. He walked over to them and carefully helped prop Kendal down against a computer terminal. Kendal's face was still streaked with pain, but his breathing was coming out less ragged and his hands were not trembling any longer.

"Hi," he mumbled out through his cracked and bleeding lips, his voice returning to his old, slightly sarcastic self. Then it morphed into sobriety as he said, "Thank you… Thank you for saving me…"

"Master Sundair," Amirrya bowed to Kendal. "I'm sorry, I can help heal you if-"

"No, I…" Kendal fumbled for the right words. "I have sensed what you must soon do. You will need the strength for that, not me."

Amirrya smiled sadly, and then straightened her posture and looked back toward Darrik, Brenden, and Cyrinity. "Now, I sensed that you would try to self-destruct this ship, right?"

Darrik nodded his head slowly, his brain trying to piece together what Kendal had meant when had said, 'I know what you must soon do'.

"Okay, well…" Amirrya licked her lips. "You'll need to initiate the self-destruct sequence and then head to your ship and get out of here, before this place blows up. I'll try and hold off Reszrinn as long as I can, and hopefully that will buy you enough time to escape."

"Hey, we're not just going to leave you here to sacrifice yourself," Darrik interjected. "Enough people have had to die today."

Amirrya smiled sadly at him, and then said, "I think that I am the only one here who will be able to hold Reszrinn off, or for that matter even stand a chance against him. Besides," her head tilted back to the shattered bacta tanks. "I have a debt to settle with him, and I know what he is capable of more than anyone else because he has held me so long as his prisoner…"

"But…," Darrik interjected, fumbling for an argument. "But what if he kills you… he said that if he does that, then he'll become even more powerful than he already is."

Amirrya's mouth twitched, and she said, "I think the source of power that he would be seeking from killing me was the combined might of both the light side and the dark side force energy that was being held within me. When you helped release that darkness that bound me, the shockwave that followed was that combined force of both dark and light side energy. After leaving me, the force energy probably focused itself around the most powerful force wielder in the area, which would have been Reszrinn…"

"So he already has the power?!" Brenden exclaimed, and both Darrik and Amirrya looked toward him.

"Yes…, and no," Amirrya said slowly. "He does now have that power, but I think he lacks the wisdom and ability to fully use it. Even so, he will still be far more powerful than anyone here, as you have already seen, and if he escapes this place alive then his power will only continue to grow."

"So, he has to die here, today, no matter what," Cyrinity mumbled from her place beside Brenden. She was still clutching her side from where Reszrinn's lightsaber had skimmed her.

"Yes," Amirrya responded with a terse nod of her head. "That's why I need you to make sure the self-destruct sequence for this ship is in place before you leave. And once it is, make sure you do not deactivate it for anything, unless I contact you and tell you that Reszrinn is dead."

Darrik stared at Amirrya, his face turning deathly serious. "You're sacrificing yourself for us… You know that there is no hope in getting out of here in time if you fail to kill Reszrinn…"

Amirrya smiled painfully back at him, her smile plagued by the reality that what he had said was true. "There is always hope, Darrik, however feeble it may seem. You'll realize that someday, I'm sure…"

She then turned her head back to the broken bacta tanks in the distance, and said, "Now please, go. You won't have much time if I cannot hold him back for long."  
Darrik stood there, facing her back, detesting just leaving her to be killed, and knowing that she had to do it. Then, with a final, resolute decision, he turned back around to face Brenden.

"Brenden, can you get both Cyrinity and Kendal back to the Daybreaker yourself while I get Artoo to input the self-destruct sequence?"

Brenden nodded tersely, and then put his arm up under Cyrinity's good shoulder, hoisting her onto her legs. He then went over to Kendal and, with Darrik's help, they both lifted the Jedi Master across Brenden's other arm.

"They can argue over who needs the bacta patches more," Brenden said with a grunt as he began moving forward with both Cyrinity and Kendal under each arm. Kendal was limping along painfully, and Cyrinity was leaning more on Brenden as she cradled her scarred side.

Darrik then turned around and spotted Artoo a few meters away, already plugged into the main computer terminal.

"You can access the self-destruct command, right, Artoo?" Darrik asked the little astromech droid. An affirmative mixture of beeps and whistles followed, and Darrik nodded, satisfied. Then, as Artoo continued working, the droid suddenly beeped out a darker, more sullen sounding trill, as if he was trying to warn Darrik of something.

Darrik's eyebrows crossed as he tried to decipher what the droid was trying to tell him. He had worked with astromech droids almost his entire life, but he still could not translate all the mechanical beeps and whistles that they made.

"What is it, Artoo," Darrik asked, realizing that whatever the droid said, he would still be unable to understand it.

"Sir," Threepio stated as he came up beside Artoo, his own voice sounding worried. "Sir, what Artoo is trying to say is that; once activated, it will be impossible for him to disengage the self-destruct command. It was built as a last resort, so that no one would be able to hack into the system and shut it off. Not even a force-user."

Darrik saw Amirrya shudder from where she stood. Then, with a nod of her head, still facing away from them, she commanded soberly. "Engage it, please."

Darrik shifted his attention to her and argued, "But, you can't just-"

"Darrik…" Her voice was soft again, but her tone was serious. She turned around and faced him. "Darrik, someone has to do this, and I know that I'm the only one who can. I'm sorry, but… it has to be done." She turned to Artoo and asked, "Have all the escape pods been ejected?"

Artoo twittered a few beeps, and then Threepio translated. "He says that the escaping crewmembers already triggered the remaining escape pods, knowing that you had a ship for yourselves. By my calculations, once this ship's self-destruct sequence has been activated and we have left on the Daybreaker, no one will be able to get off of the Ecliptic Sun alive."

Amirrya nodded, and then Artoo pulled away from the computer terminal. A timer suddenly flashed onto the screen and began counting down.

"And, it is done," Amirrya said quietly, gazing at the screen. She turned to Darrik and, in a voice much older than what hers should have been, she said, "Thank you, Darrik. I have no idea how you were able to break through the shadows that surrounded me, but you have finally set free from Reszrinn's grasp, after so long." She smiled faintly, and put her arms around his shoulders. "There's really no way for to explain this very well, but… just, thank you."

Darrik just stared back at her sullenly, his face grieved.

"Oh, and," Amirrya started again, her voice harboring the slightest hint of humor, "Do you think I could use your lightsaber when I face Reszrinn? You know, since, well, lightsaber duels don't usually go too well without one."

Darrik would have laughed had it not have been such a serious moment. He looked down at the lightsaber that he still held grasped in his hand. In an instant, all the memories of Kendal's teachings flooded back into his mind.  
_  
Always keep a hold of your lightsaber, it is your weapon and it is your defense: Never surrender your lightsaber if it can be avoided, it is always better to be caught with it then to be caught without it: This weapon is your life…Do not loose it…_

Without hesitation, Darrik handed his lightsaber to Amirrya.

"Thank you..." Amirrya said softly, taking the lightsaber's hilt.

Darrik stood looking at her for a second, his eyes meeting her glistening blue ones in the faint lighting of the bridge. "May the force be with you, Amirrya," he said somberly.  
"And with you, too," she returned the parting, her smile sad.

The snap-hiss of a lightsaber coming to life suddenly echoed across the domed bridge, and both Amirrya and Darrik turned their heads to look. Darth Reszrinn was standing just outside of the shattered bacta tank hallway that lined the far side of the room. The crimson and silver blades were both extended from his double-bladed lightsaber, one down to the ground and the other behind the Sith Lord's back.

Amirrya's lip twitched, and then she gripped Darrik's lightsaber tight in her right hand. With a shaky step forward, she began marching toward the Sith Lord.

Darrik watched her go for a second, his mind jabbing at him to try and save her somehow, even though he knew he couldn't. Another one of Kendal's lessons flashed into his mind. _You can't save everyone, Darrik…_

_But that doesn't mean I can't try…_

With that thought, he spun back around to find Brenden, Cyrinity, and Kendal. All three of them were now at the door with the words Docking printed above it, and Brenden was beside the door, with both Cyrinity and Kendal in tow, trying to hit the control panel that opened the door with his foot.

Darrik hustled over to them, and quickly tapped the control panel, opening the door for him. With a grunt, Brenden heaved Cyrinity and Kendal through, supporting both of their weight across his shoulders.

"Good luck," Darrik said to him as Brenden passed through the door.

"Yeah, and… Wait, what do you mean good luck?" Brenden asked, turning around to face him. "You're coming too, you know."

Darrik sighed and said, "Not exactly." He took a comlink attached to his belt and placed it in Brenden's vest pocket. "Call me when you get to the ship. I have some stuff I need you to do for me."

"Wait, what? You're coming with us!" Brenden said again. "Amirrya is going to hold Reszrinn off, giving us time to escape; don't let her sacrifice herself for nothing!"

"Trust me," Darrik replied, putting the weight of the force behind those two words. "I know that I have to do this."

Cyrinity and Kendal were both looking at Darrik, now, and Brenden hesitated a few seconds, starring at Darrik, before he said, "I hope you know what you're doing…"

"Me, too…" Darrik said softly. "Just keep in touch with the comlink."

Brenden nodded once, and then turned back around with both Cyrinity and Kendal across his shoulders, and began heading toward where the Daybreaker was docked.

Darrik turned around as the door closed, and found Threepio standing right behind him.

"Um, Master?!" Threepio said in his prissy, human-like voice, "Shouldn't we be evacuating this ship, too?! The self-destruct sequence has been initiated, and it will be impossible to deactivate it, now!"

"Ah, don't worry about that, Threepio," Darrik said nonchalantly. "I might need you and Artoo to help me do some stuff here in a few seconds. I have a plan, kinda…"

"Oh, dear! Master, shouldn't you be certain of what your plan is exactly before you commit yourself to it?!"


	11. Chapter XI

Future's Sacrifice - XI

The lights above Amirrya flickered on and off as the stepped off of the control section of the bridge and down into the sickly-sweet bacta. Her bare feet sloshed almost silently through the liquid as she walked, and her eyes were focused entirely on the figure in front of her. Darrik's lightsaber was gripped tightly in her right hand, deactivated down at her side. Her face was determined, and her steps did not falter as she marched forward.

Reszrinn walked silently toward her as well, and the two figures stopped a few meters away from each other. Neither of them spoke, but Reszrinn glared menacingly at her while Amirrya stared calmly back at him.

Amirrya still kept her lightsaber deactivated in her hand, and she could feel the hatred and malice emanating from Reszrinn. She slowly stretched her arms outward and spread her feet apart, readying herself into a classic dueling stance.

It had been years since she had held a lightsaber, and when she had, she'd been only a padwan. But though she had been a formable duelist then, Amirrya felt far more confident in herself now than she had ever been all those years ago. This was because of the force that was flowing through her, like a raging river winding down a canyon. She felt more in tune with it now then she had her entire life. She knew the force would not let her down, and she trusted it to guide her lightsaber against the Sith Lord's.

They both stared at each other for a few more seconds, and then Reszrinn broke the silence.

"What have you done to me…," he said quietly, his icy voice now more of a command than a taunt. "I felt the power that came from you, I felt its strength, and it channeled itself into me. But no matter what I try, it keeps evading my grasps… With that power, I should be able to crush planets into pulp, with a single command of the force, but I cannot…"

"That's because you don't know how to control it," Amirrya stated coolly, her lightsaber still deactivated at her side. "Though you may by physically and mentally strong in the force, you still lack the wisdom and experience that the ancient Sith Lords had over it. They were much more in tune with it than you are now, since you have only focused on gaining power and dominance over the force instead of understanding it and using it with your strengths."

Reszrinn glared at her, his face not quite concealing his rage. "Are you actually lecturing me, child? You haven't encountered the Jedi since you were a padwan, over nine years ago! How would you understand something that I do not?"

"Because," Amirrya spoke slowly, her mouth almost snarling. "During your attempts to torture and turn me to the dark side, I fought back. My one and only ally then became the force, and I used it to beat back your attempts to corrupt me. Then, after being shrouded in the darkness of Korriban's core for so long, I finally broke free, with some help. After this, the force came to me, and I have become more in tune with it then you will probably ever be. And that is why I know more than you do, and why I will not be defeated…"

Reszrinn's face curled up slightly. "Then I guess we'll just have to find out how powerful being completely in tune with the force really is…"

The Sith Lord suddenly darted forward, his double-bladed lightsaber spinning behind his back, and he lunged at Amirrya.

Amirrya ignited her lightsaber the moment Reszrinn began to move, and a deep blue beam of light erupted into existence from the handle. Then, with a slight prodding from the force, Amirrya spun her lightsaber swiftly to the left as Reszrinn lunged.

Sparks exploded as Reszrinn's crimson beam met Amirrya's sapphire one, and the two force wielders held their blades against each other for a long second before disengaging and then retreating back a few steps.

Amirrya swung her lightsaber back and forth in her hands, getting used to the feel of using one after so long. After a few seconds of this, she settled back down into a dueling stance with the dark blue blade raised up in front of her face. Her eyes glared at the Sith Lord from behind the sapphire glow.

Reszrinn sneered back at her, and the cold, icy smile returned to his face.

Suddenly, the Sith Lord force jumped up, straight into the air toward the crosswalks above. Amirrya jerked her head up to try and follow him, but Reszrinn disappeared from sight amidst the entanglement of crisscrossing walkways.

_Well, that's a trap if I ever saw one… _

Amirrya lowered her lightsaber back down to her side, still gazing above her, and then turned her attention to her left. The crosswalk that Kendal and Avvin had been fighting on earlier was there, slanted down into the bacta from when Reszrinn had severed the support cables.

She slowly trudged through the bacta towards it, and stepped up onto the now inclined walkway. Her lightsaber was grasped in her right hand, still ignited, and she gazed up warily to the other crosswalks above her. They were all shrouded in shadows, mostly, and only the flickering emergency lights above each walkway illuminated their durasteel structures.

_Well, here goes nothing… _

Slowly, Amirrya climbed up the steep incline of the crosswalk, her wet feet almost slipping on the steep slope a few times. She reached the top, and then looked warily around her. Nothing in her immediate vicinity moved, she slowly stepped up onto the crosswalk and began walking along it, double-checking every shadow and corner for signs of movement.

"I know you're here…" she called out into the silence as she walked.

_Well of course he knows that I know he's here…_

Her voice echoed about the domed top of the bridge briefly before being thrown back at her. The lights above her flickered as she walked, and sparks could be seen intermittently shooting off from an exposed piece of wiring or a cut control circuit that had been severed during Reszrinn's lightning-fueled force explosion. The durasteel frame of the walkway beneath her creaked every couple of steps, and Amirrya's eyes kept zipping back and forth, scanning the area for any signs of the Sith Lord.

She broke off down another path on the crosswalk and continued walking. The lights above her were even dimmer here, and some were shut off completely as sparks sporadically crackled across their surfaces.

Amirrya continued on for a few more steps, and then gracefully flipped up into the air toward the crosswalk above her. She landed almost silently on the walkway, her bare feet spread wide for stability, and she scanned the area for a few seconds before standing back up.

After a second of gazing above and below her at the entanglement of crisscrossing walkways, she determined that she was now on the second layer of the total four layers of crosswalks. Slowly, she began to stealthily move along again, her eyes adjusting to the darker surroundings.

Her lightsaber's dark blue blade made the distinctive vzzzzm, vzzzzm, sounds as she stroked it back and forth in front of her legs. All her senses in the force were alert for any sound, any hint of movement, anything at all that would indicate where the Sith Lord was hiding.

She walked a few more steps forward, and then abruptly her muscles went rigid. She jerked her lightsaber down to her side so that it was hovering just above the floor, and then slowly pivoted around on her left foot and turned around.

Darth Reszrinn stood just a few meters away, his lightsaber hilt held deactivated to his side. His black and dark blue shirt hung loosely across his chest, and his face was tilted downward as if in reproach. The scar that Avvin had carved into his left shoulder blade was clearly visible, and Amirrya could see the dark red cauterization of the flesh beneath the folds of the dark shirt.

Slowly, ever so slowly, the Sith Lord lifted his head up to look Amirrya in the face. His own eyes were flaring with anger, and his mouth was a snarl as he glowered at her.  
Then, without a word, the silver end of his lightsaber sprang into life with a crackling snap-hiss. He held it unmoving down at his side, his posture frozen as he continued to glare at Amirrya.

_Well, so much for talking this out peacefully…_ Amirrya thought sarcastically to herself, and it was in that split second that Reszrinn launched himself at her.

The Sith Lord's lightsaber arced around in two complete circles as he traded off the hilt from his left hand to his right, and then he slashed the blade out manically towards Amirrya's body. Amirrya fell back two steps as she twisted her sapphire blade around in her hands and parried the attack, and then Reszrinn was on her again, viciously hammering down upon her lightsaber with blows from the silver blade.

Sparks erupted everywhere as Amirrya retreated back, swerving her azure blade this way and that, and the echoes of the lightsaber blows were all she could hear in the cacophony of sound around her. Then she felt the force, surging up inside of her, and she knew what she had to do.

As Reszrinn's next strike came slashing down upon her, Amirrya anchored her lightsaber horizontally in front of her and spun her left foot back while keeping her right foot forward to rivet her body in place. The Sith Lord's silver blade contacted with her sapphire one with a static of crackling energy, and Amirrya felt the jolt from the force as she was jerked backwards.

The Sith Lord was now pushing down from above, gaining leverage, and from behind the silver and blue glow of the lightsaber, Amirrya could see Reszrinn's face curved up into a rabid smile; a feral animal waiting for the kill.

_Not - today…_ she thought to herself, suffusing herself with the force. Then, gritting her teeth, she pushed up with her back left foot with all of her might and drove Reszrinn back two steps. Now, she was the one with the leverage, holding her azure blade down against the Sith Lord's silver one.

She could see the surprise on Reszrinn's face as she did this, and then after another long second, she quickly disengaged and threw her own hand up palm-first to face the Sith Lord.

Reszrinn didn't have time to react as the force push hurled him backwards. He flew almost the entirety of the crosswalk, and then flipped into a surprisingly graceful landing at the other end. His single silver lightsaber was still ignited down to his side, and his face was bloodcurdling.

"So you want to play with the force, do you, child?!" Reszrinn shouted back viciously from the other side of the walkway. His voice echoed about Amirrya, and she could feel his anger like a sun going nova.

"Well, do you?!" he screamed again, his voice going raspy as he began striding determinedly towards her. His face was a rage unlike anything she had yet seen from him.

Then, without warning, Reszrinn's free hand jerked upward and the crosswalk Amirrya was on suddenly buckled. Amirrya struggled to keep her balance for a brief second, and then the section of the walkway suddenly shot upward toward the crosswalk above her with a screech of metal against metal. Amirrya reflexively threw a force bubble up around her to protect her from the oncoming crash, and then she collided with the walkway directly above her.

A cacophony of sound echoed throughout the domed bridge as Amirrya was thrown through the duratseel flooring of the crosswalk and then onto the railings that lined the third level walkway. Her breath went out of her as she did so, and she stood leaning on the railings, gasping for breath for a few seconds before she could finally move again.

Around her was the mangled frame of what had once been a section of one of the crosswalks, and sparks were flying everywhere from internal piping and wall-mounted computer terminals.

Amirrya shook her head, trying to clear her mind. Her dark brown hair swooshed out as she did so, and then she slowly stood back up off the railing. Though the force bubble had shielded her from most of the impact of being thrown through the durasteel floor, she had still been hurt by all the small jagged pieces of metal that she had hit. Her body was lacerated with tiny scars across her stomach, arms, and legs, and most of them were streaked red with blood.

Amirrya's right eye clouded with red, and she hastily wiped her arm across her forehead. A bright red streak appeared on her arm, and she wiped the blood onto the railing beside her as she blinked her eyes a few more times to clear her vision.

Suddenly, the distinctive hum of a lightsaber sounded in front of her, and Amirrya jerked her head up.

On the other side of the gaping hole in the crosswalk, where the walkway below it had mutilated it, stood Darth Reszrinn. His single silver blade was held down low to his side, just as it had been earlier, and he was glaring at Amirrya through a fountain of sparks that kept shooting up into the air from the twisted metal wreckage.

Amirrya glanced quickly around for her lightsaber, her panic rising, but the silver hilt was nowhere in sight. She was just beginning to reach out in the force to find it when Reszrinn charged at her.

The Sith Lord leapt over the gaping hole in the walkway and through the sparks in a single bound. He then came down upon Amirrya like a rancor, his silver lightsaber weaving ribbons through the dim lighting.

Amirrya jumped back, narrowly missing the wave of silver as it passed through where she had just been, and she came up a few meters away from Reszrinn. The Sith Lord then raised his left hand as if to choke her, and she felt tendrils closing around her throat.

She gasped in a few breaths, clutching her throat, and then she was lifted up off the ground. She felt as if her neck would snap at any moment, and her body writhed with pain as she tried to hold back the force choke.

"And you call this not being in tune with the force, child?!" Reszrinn shouted at her, his eyes filled with fury. "I'll show you what this can do!"

Amirrya felt the tendrils tighten even further, and her vision started to blacken around the edges. Her eyes were just starting to close when she felt the force in the back of her mind, urging her not to give up; a beacon of hope.

Amirrya's eyes widened with a newfound sense of purpose, and suddenly she spread her hands out and the force energy erupted out of her in a wave. Reszrinn's hand snapped back as if burnt, and then the Sith Lord stumbled backwards a few meters as the wave threw him into the gaping hole in the crosswalk.

But Reszrinn was tenacious, and he grasped one hand around the railing of the walkway as he fell. He then pulled himself back up onto the decking, his silver lightsaber still ignited in his right hand.

"Bad idea," he growled venomously, and then took a step toward her.

But that was as far as he got, for right then Amirrya hurled both of her hands downward, and the crosswalk above Reszrinn abruptly creaked free of its anchorage and plummeted. The Sith Lord barely had the time to raise his head and look before the crosswalk collapsed upon him in a tumultuous screech of metal.

The twisted mass of the walkway erupted into sparks once more, and Amirrya quickly jumped up onto the next crosswalk on the fourth layer. She glanced around her, sensing her lightsaber nearby, and found it caught between where two sets of railings came together. She called it to her with the force, and the lightsaber sprang into her hands.

She then turned back around and looked down at the destruction that was still settling beneath her. Besides the sparks, the only things she could see were the endless twists of metal beneath her, and she could hardly distinguish one crosswalk from another.

_But that's not going to hold him for long… _

Then, out of the corner of her eye, a glimmer of light reflected off of something metallic on the other side of the crosswalk she was on. She turned around, and found herself staring at another lightsaber handle lying on the ground a few meters away.

Amirrya's brows creased as she walked over to the handle and carefully picked it up with her free hand. She thumbed the activation switch, and a deep purple blade sprang to life.  
_This has to be Kendal's…_

Amirrya's thoughts were cut short as a dissonant grating of metal on metal sounded from below. She spun around on her feet just in time to catch Reszrinn landing on the crosswalk that she was now on, his silver blade held down to his side. His face was the fury of a madman, and his dark shirt was tattered from the wreckage that he had just jumped from.

Slowly, deliberately, the Sith Lord spun his lightsaber out in front of him, one-handed, and then ignited the crimson end of it in mid-spin, twirling it back into a two-handed grip.

Amirrya reignited her own sapphire blade, and she spun the purple and blue blades around in a single spin in each of her hands, readying herself into a fighting stance.  
Then, in the blink of an eye, Reszrinn was upon her.

The Sith Lord slashed his double-bladed lightsaber around himself and down at Amirrya in intricate thrusts and parries, his lightsaber weaving arcs of red and silver everywhere at once. Amirrya fell back from the barrage of attacks, her own two lightsabers barely catching or deflecting each strike that came her way.

She was submerged in the force now, and she was no longer in control of her hands as they twisted and turned and spun around. But she could still feel the strain on her body, her muscles growing weary from the sudden and violent movements that they were having to make.

Amirrya caught Reszrinn's eyes between the bright ribbons of red, purple, blue, and silver. His eyes were slanted down to slits, and his face was the nightmarish look of a bloodwolf readying itself for the kill.

Amirrya kept falling back, being careful not to stay in one place too long for fear of the Sith Lord's twin blades overwhelming her defenses.

Her bare feet still scurrying across the ground in retreat, Amirrya suddenly struck out low at the Sith Lord, her purple lightsaber going at his feet, her blue one at his chest. But even as she swung, she saw Reszrinn react instantly to the change in flow. The Sith Lord jumped over the low lightsaber's beam, propelling himself forward, and then parried the higher one out of the way with a twirl of his own blades as he came up directly behind Amirrya.

Amirrya shot up off the floor instantly, and without even turning around to look, she swung both of her lightsabers around in a wide arc behind her. She heard the crackle of discharging energy as the lightsabers met, and then she could see Reszrinn holding up his red blade against both of hers', sparks flying between the three beams.

Before Amirrya could even think of what next to do, Reszrinn's crimson lightsaber beam suddenly vanished, deactivated. Amirrya began to tumble forward, losing her balance as the red blade disappeared from existence and her weight fell into nothing. While falling, she saw out of the corner of her eye Reszrinn swinging the other end of his lightsaber back around to cut down at her exposed back.

She knew she couldn't twist back around as she was falling in time to get her lightsabers up to block the imminent strike. In the back of her mind, she wondered briefly if Darrik, Brenden, Kendal and Cyrinity had made it back to the ship in time.

_There's always hope, Darrik, however feeble it may seem… _

The memory of what she had said to Darrik earlier flashed through her mind. Before she could even guess why it had, she suddenly felt the force, everywhere around her, everything around her. She could feel everything that the force could, Reszrinn's lightsaber swinging down upon her, her own fall as she plummeted toward the walkway's floor, the crosswalk shuddering beneath her weight, everything.

_There's always hope, Darrik…_

With that sudden burst of knowledge, Amirrya telekinetically through herself outward in the force and slammed the energy against Reszrinn's hand. The Sith Lord was centimeters away from slicing her in half as she fell, and suddenly his hand stopped, dead in its tracks.

She could see Reszrinn's face contort into confusion through the force as she fell. Then, suddenly, she was landing on her stomach, spinning back around, and jabbing her lightsabers upward.

Reszrinn's face tensed into stillness as he stood above Amirrya. His silver lightsaber was grasped in his hands, still inches from Amirrya's body. Amirrya herself laid chest-up against the floor, her sapphire blade raised upward.

Sprouting from the Sith Lord's abdomen was the dark blue blade from Amirrya's lightsaber.

Reszrinn slowly craned his neck so that he was looking down at Amirrya. The Sith Lord's face was a mixture of shock, bewilderment, and rage, all coalescing into one, and his hands and legs were beginning to tremble with spasms.

Amirrya deactivated her blade and rolled out from under the Sith Lord. She hopped back up onto her feet a few feet away, gazing at Reszrinn's back as he stood silhouetted by the dim lighting behind him.

Amirrya was panting heavily now, and a small scar across her cheek marred her face as she stood gazing back at the silhouetted Sith Lord. She could feel her own arms and feet trembling with exhaustion, and she had to will her head to support its weight atop her shoulders.

"FOOL!" Reszrinn suddenly shouted out, his raspy voice taking an even more inhuman-like quality. He suddenly pivoted around on both of his feet, his hands and legs still trembling as he spun around to face Amirrya.

Amirrya's eyes widened in shock as she looked upon the Sith Lord. She could see light shinning through the charred hole in Reszrinn's abdomen, and yet he still stood, glaring at her with a fury that couldn't even be described. Abruptly, the Sith Lord's hands and feet stopped their shaking, and Reszrinn let out a slow breath.

"How can you ever expect to destroy something," Reszrinn yelled at her, his eyes the blazing twin suns of Tatooine, "If by hurting it you only make it stronger?!"

_Of course,_ Cyrinity suddenly realized. _A Sith Lord thrives on pain… He'll harness the hatred and suffering that he's feeling to make himself even more powerful… Whatever doesn't kill him will only make him-_

Amirrya's thoughts were sliced in half as Reszrinn abruptly shoved his free arm forward, his fingers splayed. A force push was born from the Sith Lord's outstretched hand, and Amirrya was suddenly being lifted up and rocketed backwards through the air.

Amirrya's form flew down the entirety of the crosswalk, and then entered another room apart from the bridge. She landed on the now narrower crosswalk in a jumbled heap, and her head and mind were spinning in opposite directions as she tried to stabilize herself.

When the room came to a standstill, the first things she noticed were the two lightsaber hilts that were still clutched in her hands.

_Well, at least I managed to hold on to something…_

She then grabbed the guard-railing beside her and hauled herself up onto the walkway. The walkway shuddered as she stood, and she looked around her in a quick scan of her surroundings.

Below her was an enormous engine complex, stretching out across the entire room. Massive ion energy converters dotted the landscape below her, and millions upon millions of tons of machinery were operating across the wide expanse of the room. The ion energy converters emanated an orange glow that cast the rest of the room into a deep, red hue. The clatter of noise was vociferous, and Amirrya was surprised that she had not heard any of this while on the bridge.

She then turned her head up to look upon the figure marching determinedly toward her. The single, silver blade of his lightsaber was twirling around in his right hand, and his mouth was curled up into a never-ceasing snarl. His black, shredded shirt billowed out behind him, and he seemed unaffected by the lightsaber wounds to his abdomen and shoulder as he marched forward.

Amirrya shakily readied herself into a fighting stance, slightly cramped between the narrow sides of the crosswalk. She reactivated her blue and purple lightsaber blades and spun them into a downward slant behind her, as if she was a raven about to take flight.  
Reszrinn then neared her, and when he was just a few meters away he ignited the other end of his lightsaber and spun it around high over his head. The red and silver beams merged together from the speed of the spin, and then the Sith Lord charged.


	12. Chapter XII

Future's Sacrifice - XII

"She just left the bridge, and Reszrinn's heading after her," Darrik said from his position by the arc of computer terminals that he was kneeling down by. Both droids were nearby, and Artoo was plugged into the main computer outlet.

Artoo beeped an affirmative whistle, and then the little astromech droid came back with a retort that sounded like a question.

"He asked," Threepio started in his usual prissy voice as he began translating for Darrik, "whether you wanted him to try and access the cameras for that section."

Darrik nodded tersely, his eyes still locked on the now-empty doorway at the top of the crosswalks where Amirrya and Reszrinn had disappeared down. From his position, he had seen where Reszrinn and Amirrya had been dueling just a few seconds ago. He had seen Reszrinn when Amirrya had impaled him through his stomach, and for a fleeting second he had thought that it was all finally over, that she had finally defeated the Sith Lord.

But then, Reszrinn had turned around and shouted something indistinguishable at her, and suddenly he was using the force to hurl Amirrya into the next room. He had then stalked off after her just seconds ago, and Darrik now felt powerless as he stared at the empty doorway.

A bright twitter from Artoo brought Darrik back from his astonished thoughts, and he turned his head around. A camera display flashed up onto the screen of the computer terminal, and he could see Amirrya and Reszrinn dueling fiercely on a narrow crosswalk that spanned the length of the entire room they were in. Ion energy converters where spread below where they dueled, and multiple support cables lined both sides of the walkway to support its weight.

Darrik stared at the image for a few more seconds, and then said, "So, Threepio; about how much time do we have left until this place detonates?"

"Um, let me see, sir," Threepio responded as he hustled over a few meters to the terminal that displayed the countdown timer. "We have-" Threepio started, but then his metallic voice sprouted into a shrill note of terror as he said, "Oh dear. Master, are you sure you wish to know the remaining time?!"

"Ah… No, not really," Darrik admitted with a roll of his eyes. He then turned back to the image of Reszrinn and Amirrya dueling and twitched his mouth into a frown. "Artoo, can you access all the control functions for the ion energy converter room that there in?"  
Artoo let out an affirmative beep, and abruptly different function listings began scrolling down the terminal viewscreen. Darrik quickly zoned in on the list, mentally checking off what he didn't need.

_Destabilize ion energy converters; no, that won't help me. Isolate the main power shaft from all other functioning reciprocal factors; no. Deactivate support cables for utility crosswalk…_

Darrik's eyes brightened at this last one, and he said, "Artoo, can you access the command to deactivate all the support cables that are along the crosswalk in there?"  
An affirmative beep followed. "Okay, good," Darrik said, his mouth curving into a determined smirk.

"Um, Master?" Threepio queried, coming up from behind him. "You do realize that, while deactivating these cables may in fact buy us enough time to escape ourselves, we will not be able to successfully retrieve lady Amirrya before the ship detonates. And since I see no way in contacting her, we-"

"Threepio, you're always forgetting something; the force," Darrik chided him. He then turned back to Artoo and said, "Okay, Artoo; detach the support cables when I give you the command."

The droid beeped its affirmative, but Darrik couldn't hear it as he was already submersing himself into the force, focusing outward toward the two lightsaber duelists. He could feel Reszrinn and Amirrya's presences instantly, and he could imagine the fight that was now ensuing between the two of them by the sheer magnitude of their concentration in the force.

He could feel Reszrinn, like a vicious cyclone rampaging across an urban city, and could almost visualize the vicious blows that he was hammering down upon Amirrya. Then, beside the Sith Lord's fury, he could sense Amirrya, battling against the Sith Lord with a calm and inner peace. She felt completely in tune with the force, more so than even Kendal or Avvin had been, and she felt resolute in her determination. She was still laden with anxiety and fear, but these things were only common for someone facing off against a Dark Lord of the Sith.

Slowly, Darrik reached his presence out toward her own.

Amirrya ducked low over Reszrinn's swing, and as she came up she lunged herself forward, her sapphire blade coming down in a long, vertical sweep. But the Sith Lord was too fast, and she both heard and felt as her lightsaber impacted against his crimson beam. Then, before the initial sound of the two lightsabers clashing together could fade, Amirrya was suddenly swinging her purple blade around her left side toward the Sith Lord's head.

Reszrinn disengaged his red beam from Amirrya's blue one, falling back a step, and then he suddenly spun his lightsaber around so that Amirrya's blue blade reengaged with his silver one. In the midst of this spin, the Sith Lord batted her purple lightsaber out of the way with his red blade. Amirrya was then put on the defensive once again as she fell back a few steps, parrying a fresh barrage of blows from the Sith Lord.

Her face was lined with sweat, and she knew that this duel was taxing her body to the limits. Then, in the back recesses of her mind, Amirrya felt something. It was like a voice, yelling at her to do something, but she couldn't concentrate on it enough to figure out what it was saying for fear of losing her focus.

She hurriedly backed a few steps away from Reszrinn, buying her time, and listened.

_Amirrya, get off of the crosswalk, now! _The voice shouted within her head. Amirrya stood puzzled for just a fraction of a second, and then she recognized the voice.  
_  
Darrik…? What in the universe are you still doing here?! You're supposed to be on the ship and-…_

"Get off, NOW!" Darrik yelled back at her through the force meld, and she abruptly felt the full intensity of his words through the force. She pulled away from the meld just as Reszrinn was beginning to make a horizontal sweeping motion with his lightsaber towards her. She glanced up, catching sight of the support cables hanging from the ceiling.

Then, calling upon the force to lift her into the air, she jumped forward, deactivating both of her lightsabers.

Her legs cleared Reszrinn's crimson lightsaber beam by inches, and then she was flying through the air towards the nearest of the support cables. Reszrinn turned around, shooting her a perplexed look, and suddenly the crosswalk beneath him buckled.

With the resounding sound of metal being unclamped, all of the support cables across the entire crosswalk detached themselves from the crosswalk's railing and sent the walkway plummeting down to the energy converters below.

Amirrya grasped a hold of the support cable with her hands, being careful not to drop her lightsabers. Her feet dangled about beneath her, and she gasped in a few breaths while she hung there.

An echoing crash then reached her ears, and she looked down.

The entire crosswalk had crashed down into the field of ion energy converters, and the superheated matrixes had incinerated much of the durasteel walkway's remains. The other support cables around her drifted idly.

Amirrya shot her gaze everywhere, searching the crosswalk's remains and the surrounding machinery for and signs of the Sith Lord. There was no one in sight.

_Maybe he was vaporized by the ion energy converters… but then again, when have I ever been that lucky…_

It was only then that Amirrya felt the support cable cutting into her fingers, and her attention returned to her position. Slowly, she began rocking back and forth on the cable, gaining the momentum to jump to the next one.

Three swings later, she let go and force propelled herself toward the next cable. She barely caught a hold of it, and her left hand slid free as the cable dug into her right hand, drawing a small line of blood. Miraculously, she was still able to hold on to both lightsabers, and she tenaciously pulled herself back up to the top of the cable.

Gritting her teeth, she rocked back and forth again and then force jumped to the edge of the walkway, near the bridge of the ship where the crosswalk was still intact.

She landed hard on the durasteel structure, coming down onto her knees. Shakily, she stood back. She wiped away the blood from her lacerated hands onto her legs, and then looked up to the doorway of the energy converter room.

There was still no sign of Reszrinn, and the orange glow from the energy converters continued to tint the whole room in their orange shroud.

The force suddenly tensed with alarm, and Amirrya reflexively ducked backwards, coming up onto her knees as she did so. A silver and red double-bladed lightsaber suddenly sailed over her, coming from the energy converter room, and it continued spinning over it had passed her.

Amirrya athletically sprung up onto her feet, flipping in midair and igniting both of her lightsabers as she did so. The red and silver double-bladed lightsaber then angled back towards her, seemingly of its own accord. Amirrya slashed her own blades forward, parrying the dual-bladed lightsaber aside and out of the doorway to the energy converter room.

The lightsaber disappeared completely from sight, and Amirrya waited a few seconds in silence, the beating of her heart the only sound besides the drone of machinery. She stood there motionless for another few seconds, and then the hum of a lightsaber entered her ears and a dark figure slowly drifted through the doorway.

Reszrinn was hovering; his feet a few inches off from the ground with his hands down to his side. His lightsaber was now grasped in his right hand, both blades still activated. The frayed ends of his black shirt billowed out behind him, making him resemble a sort of wraith-like phantom as he hovered. His face was concealed from Amirrya's view by the tilt of his head, but she could feel his fury saturating the force around him.

Then, once he was fully over the durasteel flooring of the crosswalk, the Sith Lord dropped down from his hover and landed on the decking. Before his feet fully contacted with the floor, he was suddenly darting toward Amirrya, a rancor in a petting zoo.

Amirrya twirled both of her lightsabers up, each of them colliding against one of Reszrinn's blades and forcing the Sith Lord to raise his lightsaber hand upward, making him vulnerable. But before Amirrya could take advantage of the situation, Reszrinn was holding his free hand palm-outward at her chest.

Amirrya barely registered the hand before she was flying backwards, both of her lightsabers being torn from her grasp. She crashed through the railing of the crosswalk, bending the metal rail backwards into a twisted form, and then flew off of the walkway toward the floor.

Air whooshed around her as she fell, and then the metal-plating of the decking impacted against her back. Bacta splashed up around her in a spray of bluish liquid, and she bent onto her side and coughed twice, sputtering the sickly-sweet fluid from her mouth. Her dark brown hair was draped over her in a shroud, and her eyes were watery. She gasped a few times, recovering her breath, and then looked up.

Reszrinn was leaping down from the crosswalks in a blur of dark robes, and his lightsaber was weaving a lustrous red and silver ribbon through the air. Instinctively, Amirrya sprang up and leapt backwards. She flipped around in midair and landed a few meters away on the control section of the bridge, free from the bacta.

Reszrinn landed right after her, just on the edge of the bacta. He then deactivated his ruby blade and began marching towards her. He held his silver blade down to his side, and the pearly tip fizzled through the bacta in a tiny trail of steam.

Amirrya frantically cast herself out in the force, searching for either of her lightsabers. She sensed one of them a few meters away, up against the transparisteel of the viewport, and she called it to her with the force.

Her hand clasped around the lightsaber's hilt just as she saw Reszrinn lunge. She desperately thumbed on the activation switch, and then as she was turning back around, she felt her shoulder explode into pain.

Amirrya howled, retreating back a few steps to dodge any obvious follow-up attack. Kendal's dark violet beam was held in her hands, shaking involuntarily from the thin scar that was now carved across her shoulder.

She barely had enough time to swing the blade in front of her as Reszrinn lunged forward again. The two blades impacted, violet and silver sparks flaring into existence from the clash. Amirrya gripped both of her hands around her lightsaber, desperately pushing against the Sith Lord's blade as Reszrinn did likewise.

They were both now on the walkway in the control section of the bridge, between the arc of computer terminals and the transparisteel viewport. Amirrya's arm seared hot down her shoulder from the lightsaber wound, but she continued adamantly pressing her blade against Reszrinn's.

They both held their lightsaber locked together for another long second, and then Amirrya disengaged, falling back a few more steps.

Her face was flushed red from the continued duel, and she was gasping in long breaths as she glared at Reszrinn. Her right shoulder was cauterized black from the lightsaber wound, and her left leg was beginning to limp. Thin scars had turned her body into a nexu scratching post, and her arms, legs, and stomach were smeared here and there with blood where the bacta had not washed it away.

The Sith Lord wasn't in much better of a state. His clothes were completely tattered, and the cauterization of the lightsaber wounds through his shoulder and abdomen were still visible beneath the black cloth. He was breathing in deep breaths of his own, and his face was pained as he stood glaring at her.

_This has to end now… _

With that thought, Amirrya sprinted forward, twirling her lightsaber intricately around her head before bringing it down upon the Sith Lord. Reszrinn spun his own silver blade up, parrying the blow off to the side. He then pulled the blade back towards himself, ignited the crimson end, and swung it outwards in a full arc towards Amirrya's waist in one smooth motion.

Amirrya ducked down low, coming onto her knees and bending her chest back as she did so. She watched as the silver and red beams of light pass right before her eyes, mere inches away.

Suddenly, the Sith Lord was jumping over her, bringing his lightsaber around with him as he landed behind her. Before she even realized it, Reszrinn was behind her and swinging his lightsaber around in a powerful outward stroke toward her head.

Amirrya jolted upright, trying desperately to lean back up fast enough to dodge the blow, and her dark brown hair flew upward as she did so. But her speed was not enough, and the ruby beam's essence scarred a deep line across her back from shoulder-to-shoulder.

Amirrya screamed again, her voice high pitched. But despite the pain, she continued coming forward, knowing that if she stopped now then she would surely die. She used the force to lift herself into the air and then spun herself around as she landed a few meters away from the Sith Lord.

But her knees buckled as she landed, and she let out a pained gasp as her back erupted into fiery pain. She fell to one knee, her eyes watering and her hair draped over her head like a helmet. A section of her brown hair had been singed off during the slash, and she could smell the burnt stench of it.

She looked down at her hands, and saw that she was now clutching only half of a lightsaber. Reszrinn's maniacal slash had severed the Kendal's hilt in half. She grimaced and dropped the handle, and then slowly tilted her head back up to glare at the Sith Lord, blinking back the water in her eyes.

"Pathetic," Reszrinn said softly, his own icy face not containing any hint of a smile.  
The Sith Lord then raised his free hand, flaying his fingers, and a bolt of dark blue lightning lanced out from his fingertips. The lightning hit Amirrya in an instant, and her body convulsed in pain. Reszrinn raised his hand, and the lightning lifted Amirrya off the ground so that she was now twitching in midair. The faint traces of Reszrinn's old sneer spread across his lips, and then he ended the lightning and threw his hand downwards.

Amirrya crashed into the deck plating back-first, and her head ricocheted off of the metal with a loud bang. She was still writhing with intermittent traces of lightning, and her body convulsed involuntarily as she tried to move.

Reszrinn deactivated the crimson blade of his lightsaber and strode towards her, his silver blade tracing lines in the floor. He came up beside her writhing figure and looked down at her scarred face.

Instead of glaring at him like any sane being would do to the person who had tortured them for almost a decade and was about to kill them now, she stared back at him peacefully, as if knowing that her time had finally come.

Reszrinn shook his head and raised his silver blade.

A sapphire beam of light suddenly came into being, shooting horizontally above where Amirrya lay as Reszrinn slashed downwards. Reszrinn's silver blade struck it with a static of sparks, and the Sith Lord jerked his head around to see who had stayed him from his killing blow.

Darrik Fate stood on the opposite side of Reszrinn, his sapphire blade blocking the Sith Lord's blade from striking Amirrya. His face was bedraggled and scared as he stood grasping the blade in his hands, but Reszrinn felt the determination flowing through him in the force.

The Sith Lord kept his silver beam pushing down against the sapphire one as he growled, "Do you think this wise, boy? Crossing blades with a Sith Lord…?"

Darrik stared back at him, unresponsive. His face was a glower, and his hands were beginning to tremble from holding the blade.

Reszrinn's mouth curved up around the edges, and then he disengaged his lightsaber from Darrik's in a twitch of his wrist.

Darrik brought his own lightsaber back toward his chest as the Sith Lord advanced toward him. His hands were trembling, and he knew that the limited lightsaber sparring techniques he had learned from Kendal were no match for Reszrinn's masterful dueling expertise.

Compared to the Sith Lord's skill, he might as well have been waving around a high-powered glowrod.

_Note to self: Fighting a Sith Lord one-on-one is a very bad idea…_

He shot his gaze toward Amirrya. She was still writhing from the lightning, though her face was oddly calm excluding her gritted teeth.

_If I can just hold him off long enough to… to what? Oh, great…_

It was at that moment that Reszrinn lunged, his silver blade sweeping upward in a swift stroke. Darrik clumsily blocked the strike, sweeping his own blade upwards, and then retreated back two steps as Reszrinn retaliated with a barrage of strikes.

Darrik spun his sapphire blade left and right, trying desperately to parry the Sith Lord's strikes. He parried three of the strikes in quick succession, dodged the fourth, and then returned to parry the fifth strike as he swung his lightsaber upward, catching the Sith Lord's silver beam in a staticky discharge of sparks.

Reszrinn sneered, and then he twitched his silver blade to the side with his wrist, sending Darrik's sapphire lightsaber twirling out of his hands.

Darrik's eyes widened as he reached out to the lightsaber, trying to pull it back to him in the force. But before he could call upon the force, Reszrinn's hand was pointed palm-out at Darrik's chest.

Darrik flew backward, his head rocking back as the intensity of the force push washed over him. He then hit the transparisteel viewport with a hard thwack, and his breath left him.

He slid to the ground slowly, his back feeling as if it had been cracked in half. After a few seconds of shock, he ever-so-slowly raised his head, his hair hanging down low into his eyes, and gazed back at the Sith Lord.

Reszrinn was walking away from him towards Amirrya, his lightsaber stroking back and forth in front of him. Amirrya was still lying on the ground; her writhing had stopped but her body lay still. As Reszrinn stood over her, she slowly turned her head up to meet his.

Her hair was brushed into her eyes, and she said in a hoarse whisper, "So this is how it ends…" Her voice was resolute, without any fear, but her tone was one of sadness.  
Darrik heard Amirrya's voice only faintly from where he lay. Then he saw Reszrinn sneer down at her and raise his lightsaber.

"It's only fitting…" the Sith Lord whispered in his cruel, icy voice.

_No…_Darrik thought. _It can't end like this… It can't…_

"Um, excuse me, sir," a familiar, metallic voice broke the tension from behind the Sith Lord.

Reszrinn's head shot around instantly, and his lightsaber froze in the upraised position that he held it in.

Next to the arc of computer terminals, Threepio stood with a silver lightsaber handle clamped awkwardly in his droid hands. The droid inelegantly thumbed the activation switch on, and Avvin's bright golden beam shot forth from the handle. Threepio's photoreceptors were wide in apparent apprehension as he stared at the blade. But then, clumsily, the protocol droid shuffled his feet across the floor and approached the Sith Lord, the lightsaber swaying inexpertly in his metallic hands.

"Uh… excuse me, sir," Threepio said again as he waddled up next to the Sith Lord. His voice was that of horror, and Darrik could have sworn that the golden protocol droid was shaking.

"Um, if you don't mind, I have been ordered to engage you in one-on-one lightsaber combat, using my supposed 'super awesome droid-enhanced dueling skills,' though I personally do not believe that I have been programmed properly for the kind of physical exertion that is required in a typical-"

That was as far as the droid got, for Reszrinn swept his hand into a beckoning motion, and suddenly Threepio was force-hurtling through the air toward the viewport. The fearful words of "Oh, dear" could be heard as the protocol droid flew through the air. He then collided against the transparisteel viewport with a resonant, metallic ring, and a small crack branched out in the transparisteel from his point of impact.

Darrik stared at the protocol droid in shock, and only a yell from Reszrinn brought his attention back to the Sith Lord.

Orange, burning flames were licking up at the Sith Lord's back, and Reszrinn was spinning around frantically to find his attacker as fire blazed into life across his already-tattered shirt. As he spun, he was greeted by a face full of flames, and the Sith Lord staggered back a step, raising his arm across his face to block the stream of fire.

Artoo was positioned in front of Reszrinn, below his line of sight, and he was blazing the Sith Lord with his droid attached flamethrower. The little astromech droid bounced with excitement as he torched the Sith Lord, and his ebullient beeps and whistles only added to the confusion.

Darrik lay watching the droid with astonishment, his jaw hanging open. It was then that he caught a metallic gleam in his peripheral vision and he snapped out of his fixed gaze to look in its direction. A couple of meters away from him, lodged between a computer chair and the transparisteel of the viewport, was his lightsaber.

Reszrinn retreated back another step, so that he was out of range of the stream of fire, and then whipped his arms down so that he could see what was shooting the flames at him. He saw an outdated astromech droid, an R2 unit, streaming a line of orange fire in his direction.

Reszrinn let out a growl of rage at the simplicity of it, and then tore his flaming shirt from his body, throwing it to the ground in a smoldering heap, and looked back at the R2 unit. The droid was approaching him again, angling the stream so that it would shoot farther.

Reszrinn stepped forward, holding his hand up to briefly block the fire, and then swung his other hand around to lift the droid into the air.

Artoo let out a warble of whistles in response to being levitated in midair, and then the droid was flying through the air toward the viewport. The little astromech droid collided with the transparisteel in a loud metallic ring, much like Threepio had earlier, and a few beeps and whistles escaped the droid in protest as it shut off its flamethrower.

Reszrinn let out a growl at being distracted like that, and then turned back around to finish Amirrya. But as he was turning his danger sense sprouted in the back of his mind, and he reflexively jerked backwards as he spun around.

The sapphire blade that would have cut his head vertically in half instead slashed into his already-injured shoulder and down to his ribcage, cauterizing deep into his flesh.  
Reszrinn howled in pain, staggering back from the blow. His dual-bladed lightsaber handle dropped from his fingers as he clutched his hand down onto his right shoulder. His entire right arm was now hanging limp from the cut, and the dark cauterization of the wound was stitched across his shoulder in an ugly grey lump.

A second passed by, and then the Sith Lord reopened his eyes and cast a menacing glare at the figure in front him.

Darrik stood in front of Reszrinn, his dark sapphire blade glistening. His hair was strewn across his face, and sweat beaded down his cheeks.

A flash of what Kendal had taught Darrik shot through his mind. _What won't kill a Sith will only make them stronger, for they gain power from the pain that they feel, and they draw on that to unleash their power in the dark side._

Darrik lunged forward.

Reszrinn howled out a bloodcurdling scream that sounded something like the word 'no' as the blue blade streaked toward him, and then he struck his left hand out in front of him as if batting away an insect.

Darrik's lightsaber hand shot to the side of him as he stumbled forward, and suddenly he was being lifted up into the air. A second later he found himself flying backwards toward the viewport. He struck the viewport with a thwack for the second time in the past minute, and his back erupted into pain as he slid down to the metal plating of the deck.

Darrik blinked a few times, and then he looked down to his hands. To his surprise, he found himself still clutching his lightsaber handle. He slowly lifted his head up and looked back toward Reszrinn.

The Sith Lord had both of his hands down to his sides, his uninjured one tensed and his scarred one limp, giving him a slightly lopsided appearance. He was shooting vibroblades at Darrik with his glare, and his mouth was the twisted curve of a scimitar.

_How in the universe is he not dead?!_

Amirrya suddenly stirred next to the Sith Lord, recovering from her lightning-induced shock. Reszrinn drove his attention to her as she shakily stood up. Her legs were wobbling as she stood, and her hair fell over her face in a shroud. From beneath the long drapes of brown hair, Darrik could see her eyes frantically darting around, no doubt searching for a lightsaber.

_Maybe I can throw her mine, and then maybe she'll be able to finish him off before-_

Reszrinn viciously waved his uninjured left arm out in a sweeping motion, and suddenly Amirrya was hurling through the air towards the viewport. She slammed into the transparisteel right next to Darrik, and then slid down beside him with a low groan.

Darrik placed his free hand onto her shoulder, his eyes wide and his mind racing for some kind of plan. She stirred and looked at him for a moment, her irises disoriented. Their eyes met for a brief second, and then Reszrinn screamed out some indecipherable cry and their attention was driven quickly back to him.

The Sith Lord was glaring at them murderously, with his mouth stretching into a crooked line as his anguished cry trailed off. He called his dropped lightsaber hilt to his hand, and then latched it in somewhere beneath the remains of his singed cloak. He then carefully came a step forward, his limp arm trailing beside him, and stretched his uninjured arm down to his side, fingers outstretched.

"You've no idea the power you're dealing with," Reszrinn spat out vehemently, his voice more animal than ever. He looked down to his outstretched hand, and dark streaks of blue began to form, arching themselves through his fingertips.

"Did you actually expect to win?!" he continued, his body trembling in anger. The blue lightning in his left hand was starting to discharge erratically into the surrounding air, and in his palm a dark blue orb was beginning to form. "I didn't spend nine years harnessing the dark side's power to be killed by some untrained force-sensitive with a lightsaber, a girl barely qualifying as a Jedi, and two outdated droids!"

Darrik heard Threepio mutter, "oh, dear!" from a few feet away, and he heard Artoo whistle a low, worried sounding trill as well. Darrik turned to look at Amirrya, and he saw her huddled against the transparisteel, her face pained from the scar across her back and shoulder. She was staring at the Sith Lord with a look of finality, and a tear rolled down here cheek and onto her hand.

"I think there's just over two minutes before this place detonates…" she muttered in a distant voice, not turning her gaze from Reszrinn.

Darrik looked at her for a second, unable to say anything. With an effort, he turned his attention from her face to his hand. His deactivated lightsaber was still gripped in his fingers, and his knuckles were white around the silver hilt.

_There's always hope…_

With that thought, Darrik plunged his hand down into his vest pocket and brought out his comlink. Amirrya turned to stare at him with a questioning look as he thumbed the activation switch on.

"Brenden, try what I told you earlier, now!" he shouted into the comlink. Without waiting for an acknowledgement, he turned back to Amirrya and ignited the azure blade of his lightsaber.

"Trust me, hold on; we're going to try something here," Darrik stammered out as he put his free arm around her. "Try and empty your lungs of as much air as you can."

Realization dawned on her, and she crossed her arms across Darrik's stomach as she let out her breath.

Darrik let out his own breath, and then looked back at the Sith Lord, keeping his sapphire lightsaber held above his head. Reszrinn was staring at them with a perplexed look across his face, and his eyes were squinted. Then the Sith Lord's face morphed into understanding, and his mouth opened to yell right as Darrik spun his lightsaber over his head toward the transparisteel.

The dark blue blade of Darrik's lightsaber slashed into the weakened transparisteel where Threepio had collided with it, and the transparisteel shattered.

Whatever Reszrinn had yelled, it was lost as a hurricane erupted inside the bridge. Everything within the immediate vicinity of the viewport streaked outward into the distance expanse of space while flash-frozen air streaked out of the pressurized room in a white blast of moisture. Darrik's senses went slow-motion as he saw the transparisteel shatter around him, the pieces raining down in a waterfall of stars. Then he was being pulled backward by an unstoppable force, along with Amirrya and the two droids.

Everything went icily cold as he watched through his slow-motion senses the bridge of the Ecliptic Sun drift slowly away from him. Darkness began clouding the outside of his vision, and he was only barely aware of himself holding Amirrya tightly beside him, her warm skin pressed up against his, staying off the coldness of space. Darrik saw Threepio and Artoo drifting not far from him, their droid bodies tumbling through space, and then he focused his attention back on the bridge.

Reszrinn was still standing there, just beginning to lean forward from the effects of the shattered transparisteel. The Sith Lord's face was dumfounded, and his eyes were a fiery cauldron. The electricity was still building in his left hand, and the orb was crackling in distorted fizzles into the air in Darrik's slow-motion senses.

But then the blast shields across the viewport began to close, sealing the bridge once again, and Darrik lost sight of the Sith Lord as the durasteel plating slid into place.


	13. Chapter XIII

Okay, everyone last chapter. And, if you've actually taken the time to read the rest of the story and haven't reviewed, then I would love to hear what you think. (seriously, this took me a while to write.) So, since writing isn't really much fun if you can't find out what other people think about it, feel free to write any kind of review on anything that happened in the story. (Yes, I did come up with the plot myself)

Anyway, thanks, and I hope you enjoy this final chapter.

* * *

Future's Sacrifice – XIII

"Hey, I see them!" Brenden called out from pilot's seat of the Daybreaker. He looked down at the controls and carefully angled the ship to intercept the drifting forms of Darrik, Amirrya, Artoo, and Threepio, and then swiveled around in his chair to face Cyrinity and Kendal. The two Jedi were both leaning against the wall with bacta patches across their burn marks. Kendal's eyes were drifting in and out on consciousness, and Cyrinity was hunched up with her teeth gritted tightly together.

"Wish me luck, guys," Brenden muttered softly to them, and then swiveled his chair back around so that he was facing the transparisteel. He made a few minor adjustments to the course so that he would be able to pick Darrik, Amirrya, and the two droids in the Daybreaker's hold, and then looked at the hyperspace sensors.

He was planning a microjump right after he picked them up, in order to hopefully avoid the impending destruction of the Ecliptic Sun, and the Daybreaker's computer was still calculating a small jump through hyperspace away from the warship. Brenden grimaced impatiently, and then looked back at the drifting forms of Darrik and Amirrya as they floated lifelessly through space.

"Oh, please be alive, please be alive," Brenden muttered to himself as he turned the ship around and began opening its back airlock to admit them in. He was reading everything through the sensors, now, and he knew he couldn't afford any mistakes.

It seemed like forever before the beep on the consul that indicated that the airlock had closed sounded, and as soon as it did Brenden reached forward and mashed down on the button that would take the Daybreaker into a microjump. The stars traced into blurry lines, and less then a second later the Daybreaker came skidding through space out of the jump, away from the Ecliptic Sun. The jump had been much cleaner this time than it had been before, since this time Brenden had coordinated the jump in advance.

Without even thinking to stabilize the ship's slow spinning, Brenden sprang out of his chair and ran towards the airlock in the back of the ship, vaulting over Cyrinity as he did so. He hurriedly sprinted down the hallway and rounded the corner that led to the back airlock. He punched the controls on the airlock, and the doorway slowly opened. Without waiting for the door to open all the way, Brenden ducked under it and came into the room.

Inside, Darrik and Amirrya lay on the ground motionless, their arms locked together. Next to them, Artoo stood beeping frantically beside them, and Threepio was in the corner of the room struggling to stand up, apparently lodged within yet another set of piping.

_Oh, please be alive, please be alive…_

Brenden raced over to Darrik and Amirrya and brought them both onto their backs. Their bodies were still motionless, and their faces looked as if they had been drained of all color.

"Oh, this is not good, Artoo," Brenden said soberly as he checked their vitals, trying to displace the feeling of dread that was now forming inside the pit of his stomach.

Suddenly, in a quick, jerked motion, Darrik's head shot up and he gasped in a long breath.

Brenden's face lit up, and he let out a breath that had been unaware of holding in. He put his arm on his comrade's shoulders and helped him to sit up. "You alright?" he asked, relief flooding his voice.

Darrik gasped in another few breaths, and then said, "Yeah, it's just a Jedi force trance thingy…" He gasped in another breath. "We should be fine…" Darrik looked to his right, at Amirrya, and carefully put his hand onto her forehead. A second later, Amirrya mimicked Darrik and brought her head up in a quick jerked motion, gasping in a long breath as she did so."

Brenden stood back up, a grin spreading across his face as he crossed his arms. "If you guys ever do that to me again, I will personally throw you out of this airlock."

Darrik chuckled, but the laugh was hollow and his eyes were dim. He looked back at Amirrya, and then carefully scooped her up in his arms as he himself stood up. She gritted her teeth, but kept from crying out from the pain that must have been lancing across her back.

"She's going to need help," Darrik said as he looked down at her face. "Do we have any more bacta patches left?"

"Um, yeah, we still have a few," Brenden said. "Kendal and Cyrinity are on the bridge, and they're holding together alright, seeing at what they've been through. We should be good until we reach a medical outpost or something, if Amirrya can hold on. You should probably try and get her to one of the medical benches on the bridge so she can rest."

Darrik nodded and then began walking back toward the bridge, careful to keep Amirrya from hitting against the sides of walls. Both Threepio and Artoo followed after them, with Brenden bringing up the rear.

A few seconds later they all reached the bridge, and Brenden clamored to the controls as Darrik laid out a medical cot for Amirrya.

"You're going to be fine, Amirrya," Darrik said as he laid her down on the cot. She managed a roll of her eyes as she adjusted her position.

"Uh, guys," Brenden called out without taking his eyes off of the Daybreaker's viewport, his voice going frantic. "You might want to see-"

A flash of blinding blue light suddenly filled the entire cabin, and Darrik involuntarily jerked away and held his hand up to his eyes. Two full seconds passed, and then the light faded and Darrik brought his hand down.

Outside of the viewport, in the far distance, what looked like a sun collapsing in on itself was expanding outward into empty space. The shockwave from the explosion was visible as it came hurtling across space, and the shockwave's ripple was causing a wave of distortion that was blurring the stars as it neared the Daybreaker.

"Hold on, everyone," Brenden said from his seat at the controls. A moment later the shockwave passed over them, and the Daybreaker jerked upward as if it was climbing a tidal wave. Brenden wrestled with the controls for a second, and then brought the Daybreaker back down to where the explosion was in sight again.

"Well, so much for the Ecliptic Sun," Brenden muttered as he let go of the controls and sat back in his seat.

The explosion was now a ripple that was slowly expanding itself into nothingness, and it continued on across the viewport in a continuous line. Darrik watched for a few more seconds, mesmerized, and then broke the silence by asking, "And you're sure that there's no way anything could have gotten off alive?"

Brenden looked back at him with a face that asked are-you-crazy and said, "If Reszrinn did manage to get off alive, then he deserves a ribbon." He spotted Darrik's doubtful face, and then said, ""Look, everything onboard that ship and around it was probably completely disintegrated. It's literally like a sun exploding; nothing could have survived. Besides, what do you sense in the force?"

Darrik tilted his head to the side and squinted his eyes, reaching out in the force. He could still sense the raw power of the explosion as it faded into nothingness, but he could sense no trace of any kind of dark side power that was manifesting itself within the explosion. "The explosion is clouding everything right now," he said at last, "but I think I would have sensed at least something if Reszrinn was still alive."

"If it helps, sir," Threepio piped in as he waddled up next to them, "All of the escape pods had been jettisoned before we left, and the odds for any being to have successfully escaped an explosion of that magnitude are approximately point-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-zero-"

"Okay, I got it, Threepio," Darrik said with a grin. "I was just making sure."  
Darrik then turned to his right as Cyrinity stirred next to Kendal and looked up. She was staring at both Darrik and Amirrya, and her back was up against the wall.

"So you two actually made it back," she said softly, her voice cracking.

A grin spread across Darrik's face as he said, "it appears so, thanks to someone." He turned to Brenden. "Seriously, thanks; I'm going to have to owe you one, now."

"Oh, com'n," Brenden said, "It was nothing. Besides, we would've missed Artoo. Do you have any idea how much money in upgrades he has in him? He's like a miniature portable gold mine."

Artoo made a few enthusiastic twitters at this remark, and Darrik smiled as he looked back at Cyrinity. "So how are you two doing?" he asked, indicating her and Kendal.

"A little sore," Kendal suddenly responded before Cyrinity could speak as the old Jedi Master wearily opened his eyes and looked up at his padwan. "It turns out that fighting a Sith Lord really does take a lot out of you."

"Um, sirs," Threepio abruptly interrupted as he waddled over to Kendal. "Excuse me, but, I think that this now belongs to you, master." Threepio then held out the silver lightsaber hilt that he had been using earlier to Kendal.

Kendal slowly took Avvin's lightsaber, and the pain that he had been trying to keep out of his eyes suddenly seeped in as he gazed down at the silver handle. He stared at the hilt a few seconds, and a single tear streaked down his cheek and onto his hand. The rest of the bridge was completely silent as they watched soberly, and one could hear the faint hum of the engines in the background due to the silence. Finally, Kendal looked back up and said somberly, "there have been too many good people lost today… We should probably head for Coruscant to alert the Jedi Council that one of their Grand Jedi Masters has been killed."

"Not until we get you two to some proper medical supplies," Brenden cut in. "Those bacta patches will only last so long against scars like that, and I don't feel like having to watch someone else die today."

A sputter of static suddenly interrupted the situation, and Brenden swiveled his chair around to the control board as a voice suddenly pervaded the static. "This is Lieutenant Terrius, of the former warship Ecliptic Sun, requesting the privilege to speak to anyone onboard the vessel Daybreaker. I repeat, this is Lieutenant-"

Brenden keyed the comm system, and then began speaking. "Yes, this is Brenden Durrath of the starship Daybreaker."

A moment of static followed, and then the lieutenant's voice came a second later. "It's good to hear that at least someone has survived. Is there anyone else onboard your ship?"

"Yes, there's Kendal Sundair, Cyrinity Surik, Darrik Fate, Amirrya Bray, and myself." Brenden paused a second. "I regret to inform you that the rest of the Jedi that were onboard the Ecliptic Sun were killed, including Master Avvin Corrind."

A longer pause of static followed this statement, and then Terrius said, "That… that is bad news, though I was expecting something as such. Does any of your party require medical attention? We're positioned a few kilometers of your position in the escape vessels that were onboard the Ecliptic Sun, and we have a respectable medical lab with us if any of you are injured."

Brenden almost laughed as he said, "Yes, Lieutenat, we do in fact need some medical attention. I'll lay in a course for your main medical ship. You can debrief us when we get there."

"Alright then, thank you. Terrius out."

Brenden punched the comm off, hit a few keys to lock in the course for the medical ship, and then swiveled around in his chair to face everyone. "Well that's a lucky break," he said, relief flooding his voice.

Darrik raised his eyebrows in response and then turned back to Amirrya. She was still laying back-first on the cot, and her head was being supported by a small pillow.

"Thanks," she choked out. Her voice raspy and cracking, but her hope radiated outward in the force. "I didn't think that I would make it out of there alive."

Darrik smiled sadly at her, and then said, "there's always hope, Amirrya," reiterating the words back at her. She smiled, and the two of them looked in each others eyes for a second. Then, slowly, they both turned their heads around so that they could gaze out the transparisteel of the deck. Brenden was turning away from the Ecliptic Sun's explosion and towards Terrius's medical vessel, but the explosion was still visible on the edge of the viewport as a bright blue streak through blackness. It was still hurtling out toward the distant edges of space, and it appeared, literally, as an eclipsing sun.

"There's always hope…"

* * *

The sphere of twisted durasteel plating collided into the mountaintop with a thunderous roar, sending a wave of gravel and loose dirt scattering into the air and raining down the mountainside in a light shower. The intertwined hunk of durasteel then dislodged from it's placement on the mountaintop and fell downward, careening through empty space for a few brief seconds before slamming down into a wide ledge fifty meters below.

The durasteel ball rolled to a stop a few meters away from where it had landed, against the side of the mountain, and loose gravel settled atop the sphere and the rest of the ledge. The sphere was glowing red hot along its edges, and it looked as if it had been shot out of a volcano. The metallic echo from hitting the mountaintop was slowly trailing off into the distance, and a few brief seconds of silence passed by as the echo finally died away.

The durasteel sphere suddenly jerked to the side, a creak of groaning plating emanating from it, and then stopped again. Another second passed by, and then a bright silver beam of light sprouted from the inside of the metal ball. The silver beam came down and then around, cutting through the durasteel like a knife through butter. As the silver beam came back to the point where it had started, the plating of durasteel fell away in a jagged circle down onto the ledge's surface.

A figure slowly crawled out of the twisted durasteel sphere, struggling as he did so. His right arm was hanging limp by his side, and he was hunched over as if his stomach was paining him. The silver blade that he had been holding suddenly disappeared into his hand, and he then shakily stepped onto the dry ledge at his feet.

Acchrin's climate was dry and airy, and no snow covered the tops of its mountains, though a cool breeze was continuously blowing. The mountain was being bathed in shadows due to the planet's single sun that was now setting in the distance, and the clicking of insects had now started.

The figure slowly stumbled forward, clutching a deep gash into his right shoulder with his uninjured hand. The rest of his body was trembling from the power it had taken to enshroud himself in a shield of durasteel as he plummeted through the planet's atmosphere, and he could hardly stay conscious, much less walk.

But even so, the figure managed to make it the side of the ledge and look down. The world below him was bright green and blue, with numerous rivers running in and out of the countryside. Only on the far side of the biggest river were their any signs of habitation on the planet, a small town that looked more like a fishing village. Everything else looked wild and undomesticated, and the many different shades of green vegetation only added to the uncultivated state of the world.

The rest of the planet was shrouded from visibility due to being bathed in shadows by the brilliant sunset. The sunset itself was streaking bright gold and orange beams of light into the few surrounding clouds, and the edge of the sun was still visible on the far side of the planet as a crescent.

A glint of light suddenly caught the figure's eyes, and he looked up to the sky, above the sunset. A piece of debris was raining down toward the world, most likely an external plating of the Ecliptic Sun that had not been vaporized in the initial explosion. This was followed by another piece of debris, and another. Then, beyond the falling streaks of burning metal, the explosion from the Ecliptic Sun finally came into view.

It was a bright blue streak across the sunset that was branching off into other tiny forks, lacing the sky in both a deep crimson glow and a bright sapphire one. The sight resembled the forming of a nebula. Slowly, the bright blue intensity of the explosion began to fade away, letting the light from the sun become the predominant light source once again.

The pale gleam of blue disappeared completely from the figure's face, leaving him shrouded in shadows once again. He pulled his uninjured hand down to his side and flexed his fingers experimentally, testing their strength. He had once worn gloves, but the black padded leather was barely even distinguishable now. Clutched in his hand was a slightly longer than usual silver handle, deactivated, and it was titled down to the ground.

The figure stood there a few more seconds, and then spoke, his voice sounding disturbingly quiet in such silence.

"I will find you, Amirrya," he said, his voice haunting. "And I will learn to harness this power, no matter what."


End file.
